By Anil John
Doha: Serena Williams may not agree with the WTA rankings system that gives her second class status while putting Dinara Safina on the pedestal, but ask her which player is likely to dominate the women’s game in the future and the American superstar couldn’t think beyond -- you guessed it right -- someone from Russia.
With as many as 10 Russians in the top 50 and many more from its neighbourhood in the top 100 if you take into account countries such as Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan which were once part of the Communist Soviet Union, the nation once known more for its champion gymnasts, chess players and brooding writers has been unleashing players of such luminous talent that traditional tennis superpowers are finding it hard to catch up.
At the Sony Ericsson Championships in Doha where only the top eight are alllowed to participate, as many as three -- Safina, Svetlana Kuznetsova and Elena Dementieva are Russian. Another player in the elite group, Victoria Azarenka, is from Belarus, not too long ago a part of the Soviet Union. The first alternate in the tournament , Vera Zvonereva, too, is Russian. “There’s probably someone right now, most likely in Russia, practicing to beat me and to beat all the girls that we have here,” Serena said on Monday, referring to the assembly-line speed at which Russia was producing teenage hopefuls.
In fact only the presence of Americans Venus and Serena Williams and a handful of stars such as Ana Ivanovic and Jelena Jankovic of Serbia aside from Belgian comeback queens Kim Clijsters and Justine Henin prevents the Russians from completely dominating the game.
And Serbians Ivanovic and Jankovic are from a relatively new independent country which came into existence after the disintegration of Communist Yugoslavia.
The collapse of Communism is the key here as it opened up new frontiers for kids in the newly independent nations which were in the past cut off from most of the outside world due to tight government controls on virtually everything considered democratic or pro-Western -- and that included the bourgeois sport of tennis.
Communist authorities stopped people from taking up tennis through their highly effective propaganda machinery and diehard enthusiasts had to play behind high walls to prevent the sport from having a “corrupting” influence on working class Russians.
But soon winds of change began sweeping across the Soviet Union and when Mikhail Gorbachev became its leader in 1985, it was evident that Communism was on its last legs.
Gorbachev relaxed centralised control and introduced wide-ranging reforms according to his policies of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring). A domino effect followed and Poland, East Germany, Czechoslavakia, Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary all said goodbye to Communism. In 1991, the mighty Soviet Union itself was dissolved.
Soon parents with money to spare started dispatching their kids to academies in America and Europe.
Former world number one Maria Sharapova was packed off to Nick Bolletieri’s academy in Florida when she was barely nine years old, and eight years later, in 2004, she announced her arrival on the big stage by thrashing defending champion Serena 6-1, 6-4 in the Wimbledon final.
A month earlier, Anastasia Myskina had become the first Russian French Open champion and in September the hard-hitting Svetlana Kuznetsova won the US Open that very year giving Russia three Grand Slam titles in one year.
The year 2004 symbolised a huge change in the world of tennis, especially as the 17-year-old Sharapova had ended a five-year domination by the Americans at the most prestigious Grand Slam of all. Her grace and beauty floored the corporate world and soon she was earning upwards of $25mn every year from endorsements alone.
Russian players such as Nadia Petrova and Sharapova have often spoken about the tremendous sacrifices their parents made to ensure a better life for them and there is no doubt the trend will continue well into the future.
Russian tennis is only going to get better, and as Serena predicted someone from the country is sure to rule the game in the future. Who could it be? The list is endless, but watch out for Daria Sharapova, Maria’s little cousin. The 14-year-old is hugely tipped to follow in the footsteps of her glamorous cousin. |
