Ashley, Playboy bunny

She may have been defeated by Serena Williams at the French Open on Sunday, but Ashley Harkleroad claimed a more glamorous coup over her American rival — by appearing on the pages of Playboy magazine.

The 23-year-old found herself kicking her heels earlier this year when she was recovering from surgery to remove a cyst from her ovaries. While others would choose to convalesce on a relaxing vacation or just lounge in front of the television, Harkleroad chose to accept the offer of posing nude for the world’s most famous glamour magazine. "I was just laying there for three weeks, and, you know, an offer came to me. I thought, well, I’m not really doing anything right now so I thought about it and it was something that I did. I’m proud of my body. I was representing a female athlete’s body. That can be sexy too, you know," she told reporters.

She said she would be the first tennis player to appear in the magazine’s August edition. "It was hard work, but, you know, it was just a completely different experience. It was fun. I think it comes out July 13. It’s the August edition," she said.

Serena was full of admiration for Harkleroad’s naked ambition. "I’m just surprised that she beat me to it," Serena, no stranger to the camera lens herself, joked with reporters.