Tennis Update: Russian women dominate Pilot Pen
Proliferation of Russian women in tennis is certainly being noticed at the Pilot Pen Tennis tournament this year. Three semi-finalists out of a total four are Russians.
Elena Dementieva, Nadia Petrova and Maria Kirilenko are the Russian semi-finalists of this year. Whereas U.S. top seed Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark is with them. There are altogether seven Russians in the world’s top 25 ranking. Russian Vera Zvonareva is on the top of the list, who ranks NO.8 in the world.
Petrova said, “It’s a big country, what do you expect?” “We have 140 million people living in that country. Sport is very big in my country. It’s not only tennis, its soccer, its hockey, its gymnastics. We are very dedicated to what we do” she added.
Although there are 300 million people currently living in United States right now and only two of their players are in top 25. One is Serena Williams, whose world ranking is No.1 and Venus Williams whose world ranking is No.5.
Dementieva said, “Well, I wish I can say that we have a great system, and we have a great support from the (Russian sports) federation, but it’s not true,” “I mean, all these results are just based on our hard work. It is great to have so many of us trying to compete against each other, trying to be part of the Olympic team, a part of the Fed Cup team. It is great motivation for all of us,” She added.
Dementieva said that she doesn’t like playing against anyone from her own country and doesn’t feel happy knocking them down because she is not used to all of this.
“Now I am coming into a tournament, and I am going to face maybe one, two, three Russians in the draw,” Dementieva said. “I’m not so emotional about it. It is just a match to play, a match to win.”
Russia has produced many gems who have given a new light to the tennis world. Vera Igorevna Zvonareva is one of them, who was introduced to tennis at the age of six. She has won ten WTA Tour singles titles and a bronze medal at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. She has also won 2008 WTA tour championship and was runner-up at 2010 Wimbledon Championships.
Vera Igorevna has a unique style of playing, she is basically a baseliner stuffed with good offensive qualities. Due to her excellent lateral movement in rallies, she easily outruns many players. Due to her fitness and speed, Zvonareva won the Indian Wells in 2009. She is noted for her powerful ground strokes.
The other Russian who has made her name in the tennis world is Elena Dementieva. Elena Dementieva is a Russian professional tennis player. She has won two Olympic medals in singles, including one gold medal which was won by her in Beijing 2008. She also played the finals of 2004 French Open and 2004 U.S. Open. Dementieva is really famous for her playing style. Her strong and powerful performance on the courts always wins the hearts of the viewers. May be that’s the reason that day by day her number of fans are increasing. She has no particular favourite surface and maybe that’s the reason of her often success. Dementieva could adapt any surface easily, although her best results are usually on the hard courts. Her athleticism serve, especially her slice serve took her to two consecutive semi finals at Wimbledon.
The third Russian is Nadia Petrova. This Russian tennis professional player has won 27 WTA titles, which include nine in singles and eighteen in doubles. She has also reached the semi finals of 2003 and 2005 French Open and won the year-ending Sony Ericsson Championships in 2004.
These Russian girls have raised their nation’s name and the entire nation feel proud of having such players. Soon these girls will be in New York next week at U.S. Open Tournaments 2010. We hope that in this tournament as well, they won’t let down their country and when they will reach back, the whole nation will be once again proud of these girls.
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