Russians and tennis

All year we have been hearing about Russian women performing or rather winning the WTA tennis majors. The latest WTA rankings (www.wtatour.com) shows that there are 7 Russians( 9 if you consider Belarus which was a part of the erstwhile USSR) in the top 20. This is more than any other country has in the list. This has been all the more surprising since I have really not heard of anyone other than Martina Navratilova performing at the highest levels of the game for a long time (atleast as long as I have been following the game). Given the amount of upheavals and economic problems Russia has had over the last few years, its truly remarkable and a big credit to the athletes. Many of their stories showthe tremendous sacrifices made by the family to give their daughters the very best of coaching required to perform at the highest levels of the game. This has often involved the family sending the daughter off to the US where the facilities are some of the very best for prodigies. Hats off to the parents of these tennis stars.

In India, where facilities are not as good as Russia but the economic support can be fairly good if the player shows promise, there has been an utter lack of female tennis prospects, leave alone stars. The only tennis player from India to have ever made an impact in the Indian papers itself was V.Nirupama. I have to admit, I have not even heard of any other Indian female tennis player mentioned regularly in the papers. Such is the level of the game. Much of this can be attributed to the stamina of Indian athletes which has plagued not just Indian tennis but Indian sports in general. I wouldnt want to discuss that in this blog as there is so much that can be said about whats with the performance of Indian sports or rather the lack of it. There is also very little grassroots support for women in tennis and not much corporate sponsorship. This situation needs to change. The success of Russians in tennis is a good example of how stars are born with the support of families and total focus on part of the player to make it to the top. We sure can learn a lot from them. Hopefully we do.