All but Sharapova's loo seat up for auction in Singapore

"Since there's an interest for products that Sharapova will use during her stay here, we want to do this tastefully," organiser Jerry Goh told Singapore's New Paper on Sunday.

 "So no toilet seats or covers will be offered for auction."

   While it qualifies as a world financial powerhouse, football- centric Singapore can equally be classified as tennis-starved, with the last tournament staged in the late 1990s by the ATP. Women played a minor WTA event at the city-state early in the last decade.

 Sharapova is due for a one-night exhibition next Sunday against fellow Russian Anna Chakvetadze. It will be the first visit for former number one Sharapova to Singapore.

 The newspaper said that eager fans have been making inquiries - and  offers - to buy almost anything that the wildly popular tastemaker comes in contact with.

 Organizers from the Hong Kong-based Entertainment Group Limited, whose boss Lincoln Venancio formerly ran an ATP event in Hong Kong and which presented the recent Pete Sampras-Roger Federer exhibition in Kuala Lumpur, is hoping to satisfy at least some of the impressive fan demand.

 Sharapova will arrive in Singapore on Friday, with the presidential  suite at the riverside Fullerton Hotel - cost 4,745 dollars per night - already reserved.

 In what will become a fund-raising effort for charity, EGL officials and local partner Sports Management Group are set to offer various Sharapova "artifacts" for action to eager fans.

 The five-star hotel whose building served as the Post Office during British colonial times, has agreed - in the name of charity - to allow certain disposable items from the Sharapova suite to go under the auctioneer's hammer.

 They include disposable items such as bathrobes, towels slippers, pillow cases and bedsheets.

 No word on whether the good will be washed or unwashed.

 "This is a first for us and we haven't had time to think about the logistics of an auction, and which charity will get the proceeds," Venencio told the paper.

 "But Sharapova supports charitable causes and she's smart and savvy enough to know that this demand for things that she has used can help a good cause somewhere."

   To avoid staging a circus, the Brazilian-born sports marketer added that the auction process will be well-regulated.

 He added that the player might even wish to autograph some of the items. "If there are enough requests for them to remain unwashed, we'll consider that when we store them after her stay."

By Bill Scott, dpa