Mara Santangelo, who’s playing in the Bangalore Open final, has a ‘jeet’ tattoo on her neck:

Mara sports a tattoo, ‘jeet’ — which means victory in Hindi, on the back of her neck and “got it done back in Rome following her victory [in Bangalore] last year.” [Link]

Sania Mirza lost at the Bangalore quarterfinals, but she and Santangelo defeated Floridian sisters Neha and Shikha Uberoi in doubles. Mirza and Santangelo crashed out in semifinals.

Concidentally, David Beckham’s forearm tattoo references the same word root. Now this back of the neck thing is brilliant. It gives ‘I kept my coach’s advice at the back of my head’ a whole new meaning.

A throat tattoo might be even better for Santangelo so she could psych herself up in the mirror. But then the last thing she wants to do is flash ‘victory’ at the miniskirted Amazon on the other side of the net. And then there’s the risk of bad script. Like Beckham’s slightly mangled Hindi, like bad Japanese and Chinese, it’s only a matter of time before someone wanting ‘jeet’ comes out with ‘jhoot’ (lie), before someone calling herself a ‘foodie’ is permanently tagged a ‘fuddi.’

Clearly, the solution is a heads-up display in Santangelo’s shades which enhances the image of the ball, predicts its flight path and superimposes ‘noob! pawned’ on top of her opponent. The Marinator. It’s the future, and you know it.