NEW YORK -- Riza Zalameda flashes a camera-ready smile and says, with unwavering conviction, "Ever since I was little, I wanted to be famous."

The Stalker

The National Institue of Justice has estimated that 1.4 million Americans are stalked every year. Four times as many women will be stalked as men. Celebrity stalkers frequently have never met their victims but imagine a relationship in order to validate their self-worth. One of the factors that indicates an increased risk of violence is traveling a great distance to see the object of their obsession -- Martina Hingis' convicted stalker and Serena Williams' alleged stalker fit this criteria. Other factors include drug abuse, access to weapons, history of violence and length of time stalking a victim. Some stalkers never attack their victims while others strike without warning. Stalking behavior includes trying to make contact through repeated phone calls, e-mails or letters, loitering at work or near their victim's home, giving gifts and manipulative behavior, such as threatening suicide. Stalkers cannot be deterred; usually the victim must alter his or her lifestyle. Sometimes a person close to the victim -- family, friend or bodyguard -- can be deemed a threat if they are keeping the stalker from achieving closeness. Monica Seles was attacked by a stalker of Steffi Graf because she was impeding Graf's career. Sources: antistalking.com, stalkingbehavior.com, Safe Horizon and Gavin de Becker and Associates

Zalameda, 16, is personable, effervescent -- her bright brown eyes and attractive Asian features would play well on the yawning American Express billboards that dominate the landscape here around the National Tennis Center -- the epitome of her California glossy 90210 zip code.

"One day, no one knows you ... the next day, everyone knows you," Zalameda said last week at the U.S. Open, eyes widening at the thought. "It can happen like that."

While Zalameda desperately seeks stardom as much as any ambitious teenager, she acknowledged the heavy baggage that comes with the attention.

"You have to be a special person to handle all the responsibility of being a public person," said Zalameda. "It's scary, some of the things I've been reading, but there's a downside to everything. It doesn't change your goal."

There was a time not so long ago when only a few, elite athletes were the objects of our fascination. Babe Ruth was such an athlete and he moved easily in the world of marquee entertainers. Women's tennis, for the most part, has flown under the radar of widespread public affection over the years. Chris Evert, for instance, was widely adored. But, outside of a few million posters in teenage boys' bedrooms across America, did anyone ever act violently on those impulses?

Today, in the brave new world that is the global village, things are chillingly different.

We are on a first-name basis with more than a handful of players, particularly on the women's side: Serena, Venus, Monica, Lindsay, Martina, Jennifer and, of course, Anna. And because we are on such familiar terms with these athletes, we feel we know them. For some fans -- the root of the word, tellingly, is fanatic -- that is no longer enough.

While No. 1 seed Serena Williams slashed her way through the U.S. Open field, the love-sick man who has pursued her through Germany, Italy, France, England and most recently the United States, sat in a Rikers Island jail cell only 10 miles away until his discharge.

For more than two years, Martina Hingis has been haunted by a stalker, a 46-year-old Croatian-born naval architect who once arrived on her Zurich, Switzerland, doorstep with flowers.

In 1993, during a changeover in Hamburg, Monica Seles was stabbed in the back by a German lathe operator whose goal was to prevent her from wresting the No. 1 ranking from Steffi Graf. Ultimately, he succeeded.

Last year in Arizona, Jennifer Capriati experienced a harassment episode.

"If you want to compare the top 10 women's tennis players of today to the players from previous eras -- they didn't have the rock-star persona we see now," said Danny Zausner, the United States Tennis Association's managing director of the National Tennis Center. "This level of obsession didn't exist."

A serious business
No one, from the players to the governing bodies of tennis, likes to talk about the issue of stalking.

"I don't want to comment specifically on our security," explained Tandy O'Donoghue, the WTA Tour's chief legal officer. "That sort of defeats the idea of having a security plan." It's similar to the story of the emperor who wore no clothes; the problem has become painfully obvious, but people are reticent to acknowledge it.

As the experiences of some notable actors have demonstrated in recent years, stalking is a serious business, indeed. CBS late night host David Letterman has had well-publicized problems with a woman who repeatedly visited his Connecticut home. In 1989, actress Rebecca Schaeffer was killed by a stalker at her home in Los Angeles.

Talking about the issue can work in two directions, tennis people argue. On one hand, it can elevate the issue into the public forum and educate people; the worst-case scenario is that it will attract more star-struck sycophants.

The players, at least, are aware. It is said in tennis circles that Serena Williams, Hingis, Kournikova and Seles are all moving among Open crowds with personal bodyguards.

According to the USTA's Zausner, this year's Open security is unprecedented in its breadth and depth, at least in part because of concerns following Sept. 11.

"The world we live in has forced us to re-evaluate security," Zausner said. "For the first time, we've done backround checks on all credential holders and we've elevated the level of checks on employees. I can't say we've received notification of more threats than in years past, but it's fair to say the whole process has received more attention."

Players, too, seem to be receiving more attention from security. Even junior players are accompanied by at least one escort and major players heading to the outside courts have been flanked by three and sometimes four.

"We've always escorted our players," Zausner said. "But like everyone else, we've been implementing an insurance policy to make sure we're covering our bases."

Zausner would not say if the USTA has received notification of more threats against players than in previous years, but the perception is that the problem is escalating. The perception has been driven home most recently by the curious case plaguing Serena Williams.

Albrecht Stromeyer, 34, lists his occupation as a college student in Frankfurt, Germany. Since June 2001, he has followed Williams at European tennis tournaments, sent e-mails and made telephone calls. He has called out to Williams, "I love you," in both English and German.

	“	The bail is so low, I think that encourages him to keep doing what he's doing. It makes me wonder, 'Could he hurt Serena?' This guy could have gotten in and hurt Serena. I don't think Serena takes it seriously enough. ”
		— Richard Williams

A year ago at Wimbledon, he was arrested for scuffling with police outside the gates of the All England Club. In May, he was ordered out of the country by Italian police after he crossed paths with Williams at the Italian Open. In the first week of the U.S. Open, he was spotted by a Queens policeman, who recognized him from a photo circulated by Williams' agent. Stromeyer was watching Williams practice from the other side of a chain-link fence.

He was arrested for three counts of stalking and bail was set at $3,000. He pleaded guilty to fourth-degree stalking -- a misdemeanor -- in Criminal Court in Queens, and was discharged. Judge Suzanne Melendez told Stromeyer to stay away from Williams and her family and at least 1,000 yards from any WTA Tour or U.S. Tennis Association tournament, including the remainder of the U.S. Open.

In her first interview after Stromeyer was arrested, a WTA official preceded the press conference with the announcement that Williams would not answer questions about the stalker for "legal and security" reasons.

Her father Richard, not surprisingly, has had plenty to say.

"The bail is so low, I think that encourages him to keep doing what he's doing," Williams said. "It makes me wonder, 'Could he hurt Serena?'

"This guy could have gotten in and hurt Serena. I don't think Serena takes it seriously enough."

Her public comments at Wimbledon seemed to reinforce that point of view.

"I don't really pay any attention to anything like that," Serena said. "But I don't see how it could affect my game, him being arrested. I'm a strong person. I try not to let things like that affect me."

Her more private thoughts, however, suggest she is acutely aware of the situation and, in a larger sense, the potentially dangerous dynamic between star and fan. She shared her feelings with Selena Roberts of The New York Times back in June.

"I'm not afraid, but I'm cautious," she told Roberts at Wimbledon. "It might be scary sometimes, but at the end, I have to live my life. As popularity grows, there is a price you pay. But I'd prefer to be a successful person than turn away from that because it has a big personal price tag on it.

"I'm not playing tennis for the popularity or the money -- when you're young you don't think of that. I play because I enjoy it. You can't complain about it. This is the life I've chosen."

Too much mojo?
Before the Williamses and Pete Sampras took over the headlines, the leading story of U.S. Open was Serena Williams' clingy black cat suit, Anna Kournikova's teal belly shirt and Tommy Haas' would-be sleeveless muscle shirt -- pretty much in that order.

	The fixation with fashion, such as Serena Williams cat suit, is merely a symptom of the public's fascination with detail.

The fixation with fashion is merely a symptom of our fascination with detail. Television shows like "Inside Edition," "Extra," "Entertainment Tonight" and "Access Hollywood," and magazines like "People," "Us," and "Entertainment Weekly" feed the hunger. ESPN's SportsCenter, with its emphasis on highlights, serves the same purpose in the world of sports. In the trajectory of American culture, these are all relatively new phenomenons.

Christine Brennan, a columnist for USA Today, is recognized as a leading observer of women in sport. She is the author of "Inside Edge" and "Edge of Glory," two books that examine the subjective, sometimes impressionistic world of world-class ice skating.

"I'm amazed that in 2002, we're spending so much time with what women are wearing," Brennan said. "Here you have the greatest athletes to ever play the game and we're talking about clothes. Serena is the world's No. 1 player and she's being discussed more for her fashion statement than her 100 mile-an-hour serve.

"And it's not just the media's fault -- she's enjoying all of this, too."

True enough. Williams has delighted in discussing her skimpy outfit and, clearly, Kournikova and Haas, among others, enjoy the attention. For Kournikova, it is a livelihood. It says a great deal about our culture that Kournikova, who has yet to win a professional singles event of consequence, is the most photographed athlete on the WTA Tour.

The Web sites that traffic in these photos can only serve to fan the fires of affection.

"I think there's a correlation between the exposure and the threats we're hearing about," Brennan said. "The kooks get more opportunities to see these players on the television in their living room."

Brennan sighed. "Perhaps," she said, "this is the ultimate signal that women's tennis has finally arrived."

Another sign could be seen this week when Sports Illustrated concocted a frothy story about a 17-year-old junior tennis beauty from Uzbekistan named Simonya Popova. There are numerous clues in Jon Wertheim's story -- the name is a play on the movie "Simone," about a virtual actress who doesn't exist -- that the story is bogus, but the WTA, for one, was furious.

"It says we can't wait to get a player like that because we're losing our mojo," WTA spokesman Chris De Maria told the New York Post. "We have tons of mojo."

Maybe that's part of the problem.

Seeking a comfort level
Monica Seles had just finished a Hopman Cup mixed doubles match with Jan-Michael Gambill some 21 months ago in Australia when a man tapped her on the shoulder from behind.

	The Australian Open in 1993 was the last Grand Slam Monica Seles won before she was stabbed. She has only won one Slam since.

Seles, who left the WTA Tour for more than two years after her stabbing in Hamburg, was understandably startled by the autograph seeker. Media reports described Seles as "visibly shaken" and said she fled the court.

Later, Seles admitted she was surprised but said the event had been blown out of proportion.

"I wasn't worried," Seles said. "I feel very comfortable being out there at this point in my career. I don't like it when people touch me from the back, but I signed the autograph for the guy after I was walking out."

Security removed the man from the court, but he was never charged with a crime.

The incident, at the very least, underlined how difficult it is to insulate athletes from their fans -- malicious or benign.

Seles used to have difficulty talking about the 1993 attack by Guenter Parche, but it has come up several times here at the U.S. Open.

"There are different levels of threats," Seles said last Sunday. "I mean, the guy who stabbed me didn't love me -- but he may have loved Steffi.

"I don't know Serena and I don't know the guy who was supposed to be stalking her, so I don't have perspective. But I do know that since my incident, there's been a much better job of protecting the players."

The published profiles of Parche and Stromeyer are similar in many ways to those of Dubravko Rajcevic, the man who inundated Hingis with love letters and was persistent in his attempts to meet her beginning in March, 2000.

The father of Serena Williams' alleged stalker, Erich Stromeyer, a retired German banker, told the New York Daily News that his son was mentally ill, but insisted he was not dangerous. A psychiatrist's evaluation of Rajcevic said he was delusional.

Social dysfunction seems to be a common thread. Rajcevic told friends that Hingis was telling others they were going to be married.

Rajcevic was convicted of stalking and trespassing this past April but, having already served 375 days in jail, he is scheduled to be released sometime early next spring. His two-year probation forbids direct or indirect contact with Hingis, although if he is deported there is no guarantee that his probation will be supervised.

Stromeyer, facing a $1,000 fine and up to a year in jail if convicted, waived his right of appeal and agreed to get psychiatric treatment in his hometown of Frankfurt.

Parche, for his part, never served jail time.

Richard Williams said he is considering a lawsuit of Stromeyer for the alleged havoc he has wrought.

"The WTA could do a little bit more," Williams said, "but I don't know too much more that they can do because, you have to remember, tennis is not set up like baseball and football. The players go outside to practice and with those sports they can practice inside the stadium and travel underground, where tennis is not.

"But I hope that it will help the WTA to take a good look at it."

WTA Tour CEO Kevin Wulff countered: "Our players are not just athletes. They're so interesting off the court, and we have to be aware of how popular they're becoming. We have a security company that evaluates the situation for us. We have to update it tournament by tournament, month by month, year by year."

Meanwhile, Oracene Williams -- the mother of Serena and Venus -- confirmed that the sisters have both received an unrelenting supply of threats since their rise to prominence.

This, as Serena wryly noted, is the life they have chosen.

Not surprisingly, the junior tennis player from Beverly Hills would be thrilled to live the life -- if it chose her.

Riza Zalameda said that boys in high school have already used tennis conversation as a way to break the ice.

"Nothing scary," Zalameda said. "People are nice about it."

Perhaps it will be different if she breaks into the top 100 world rankings.

Greg Garber is a senior writer at ESPN.com.