History and fate of tennis in Russia
Tennis
The fate of tennis in Russia cannot be called easy. Tennis first appeared here at the end of the 19th century and immediately became "the sport of the rich": members of the Tsar family, the nobility and manufacturers played. León Tolstoi included a scene of the practice of this new fashion sport in his novel ‘Anna Karenina’. In 1913 Russia joined the International Tennis Federation. At that time, the country had more than 48 tennis clubs. Unfortunately, the image of "bourgeois entertainment" served tennis a bad service in the Soviet years.
Tennis had long remained on the outskirts of Soviet sport, especially because from 1924 to 1988 it had not been included in the Olympic Games. However, tennis competitions had been held and, in 1958, the Soviet athletes first appeared in international youth competitions and reached the final. Since then, Soviet tennis players had sometimes played at the prestigious circuit finals, but the times of great victories arrived later. In the 1990s, Yevgeny Kafelnikov’s star had increased. He took Russia the victory in individual in the prestigious Roland-Garros Tournament (1996) and the Sydney Olympic Games (2000). In 1999 he was classified as a world player. Another male tennis star was Marath Safin.
The dramatic ascent of Russian tennis began in the 2000s. It is largely explained by the fact that former Russian president Boris Yeltsin was fond of this sport. The president contributed to open new training fields and classes and liked to reduce stress on the tennis court. In 2002, the Russian team won the Davis Cup and in 2004 Russian women won 3 of the 4 Grand Slam tournaments. In 2005, Maria Sharapova became the number one in the world, and in the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games the three levels of the medal podium were occupied by Russian tennis players.
Russia is proud of the victories of Anastasia Myskina, Elena Dementieva, Dinara Safina and Vera Zvonareva. Recently, Svetlana Kuznetsova actively tries to remove Maria Sharapova’s title 1 in the world. Good results in world tournaments are demonstrated by Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, Elena Vesnina and Ekaterina Makarova. In male tennis the achievements are more modest, but Mikhail Yuzhny and Andrey Kuznetsov try to "keep the standard". The Russians hope that a new champion who can repeat the achievements of Kafelnikov and Safin will grow somewhere.
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