At least Australian tennis player Mark Philippousis didn’t dream up the Kittens vs. Cougars concept for his new reality series “Age of Love.” Or that’s what I’m assuming given the look on his face when he realized his dating pool was limited (at first) to women 39+.

But I am afraid that by starring in this show, Philippousis has buried his tennis career along with his dignity. There was the moment he fervently concentrated on avoiding looking at one contestant’s cleavage and later admitted he was focusing harder on that than when he played certain matches.

Yikes. I think that’s the kind of revelation that’s better suited to the senior tour, Mark.

He is only 31, but his ranking on the ATP Tour has dropped to No. 317.

It defies credulity that a man who has dated women like Anna Kournikova and reportedly Shannon Elizabeth, Paris Hilton and Tara Reid needs help getting a date. When Maxim’s Hot 100 is the pool you’re swimming in, who needs the suits at NBC to pick out cute unknowns?

So he must be doing this for some other reason. I can only speculate it has to do with prepping for life after tennis, getting his name in front of the American people throught the medium they best understand; reality television.

Which makes me wonder how likely it is we’ll see him compete with regularity on the ATP Tour. At his advanced age, at least for tennis, he might be able to relate to the older women he’s dating. He too is looking at his viability fade, wondering what might be next for him as younger men capture titles and win Davis Cup.

Of course, I’m only watching in the interest of science. Aside from the sterotypes about older women (desperate crones) and younger women (clueless and emotional), the show is standard “Bachelor” fare. But if it doesn’t work out, he can alway check in with Scott Baio on getting a season of “Mark Philippoussis is 45 and single.”

But will anyone be watching by then?