  Whenever stars are rotating very fast (Omega/Omega_crit > 0.7, with
Omega_crit the Keplerian angular velocity of the star accounting for its
deformation) radiative stellar winds are enhanced in polar regions. This
theoretical prediction is now confirmed by interferometric observations of fast
rotating stars.} Polar winds remove less angular momentum than spherical winds
and thus allow the star to keep more angular momentum. We quantitatively assess
the importance of this effect.
  First we use a semi-analytical approach to estimate the variation of the
angular momentum loss when the rotation parameter increases. Then we compute
complete 9 MSun stellar models at very high angular velocities (starting on the
ZAMS with Omega/Omega_crit = 0.8 and reaching the critical velocity during the
Main Sequence) with and without radiative wind anisotropies.
  When wind anisotropies are accounted for, the angular momentum loss rate is
reduced by less than 4% for Omega/Omega_crit < 0.9 with respect to the case of
spherical winds. The reduction amounts to at most 30% when the star is rotating
near the critical velocity. These values result from two counteracting effects:
on the one hand polar winds reduce the loss of angular momentum, on the other
hand, surface deformations imply that the mass which is lost at high
co-latitude is lost at a larger distance from the rotational axis and thus
removes more angular momentum.
  In contrast with previous studies, which neglected surface deformations, we
show that the radiative wind anisotropies have a relatively modest effect on
the evolution of the angular momentum content of fast rotating stars.
