Wimbledon Wrapup: Yet Another Russian Bloodbath

Once again, Russian women humiliated themselves at a grand-slam tennis tournament.  Russia’s so-called “number one” player was by far the worst offender, so unspeakably wretched that she made the whole national tennis program look entirely fraudulent – the second time she’d done so in as many months.

Russian #1 Dinara Safina has now appeared in the finals of two grand slam events this year and the semifinals of the third, and embarrassed herself all three times. She won three of 15 games played at the Australian Open final, six of 18 games played at the French Open final, and an utterly pathetic one of 13 games played at the Wimbledon semifinal.  46 total games played against three different opponents, and so-called “world #1″ Safina was only able to win ten of them, less than a quarter of the total.  And six of those ten games came from a woeful, awful fellow Russian.  In 28 games against non-Russians, Safina won only four, an utterly humiliating one-seventh share.

The performance of the other Russians at Wimbledon, though, was hardly much better.

Three of the top eight female seeds at Wimbledon this year lost before reaching the round of 16.  Two of those three were Russians, including this year’s French Open “champion”  and #5 seed Svetlana Kuznetsova, who lost to an unseeded opponent, and  #7 Vera Zvonareva, who lost to the #26 seed.

But they did well in a sense, because three of Russia’s other eight seeds (#24 Maria Sharapova, #31 Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and #32 Anna Chakvetadze) lost to unseeded opponents before even reaching the third round of the tournament.

With five of its eight seeds eliminated (not one by a higher seed), this left Russia with only three top players alive in the fourth round:  #1 Safina, #4 Elena Dementieva and #10 Nadia Petrova.

Petrova (seeded #10) was ejected there, but at least she lost to a higher seed (#8) and stretched the match to three sets (albeit surrendering meekly in the third, winning just three games), the first Russian to manage this, for Russians at least, impressive feat.  Elena Dementieva advanced to the quarter finals, and guess how she did it:  She drew an unseeded Russian opponent and, of course, dispatched her.  The only Russian left in the draw with a chance to defeat a non-Russian opponent to advance in the fourth round was #1 seed Dinara Safina, who drew the #17-seeded Frenchwoman Amelie Mauresmo, the biggest head case in the sport.  Mauresmo handily whipped Safina in the first set and was up a break in the third when, as is her wont, she unravled like a cheap suit and let Safina walk off with the match.

The dumb luck of the two remaining Russians did not stop there.  Both of them faced unseeded opponents in their quarter-finals match, while the two American sisters each faced a top-12-seeded rival.  Dementieva, to her credit, demolished her lowly opponent but Safina, the so-called “number one” player in the world, needed three sets to dispose of hers.  But Dementieva had made it all the way to the semi-finals without once having to face any seeded opponent and three of her five match wins came against hapless fellow Russians.  Safina faced only one seed, and none in the top 15, on her own way to the semis.  It was almost as if the tournament had been rigged for both of them.

But that was actually the end of the dumb luck for the Russians. Each faced the prospect of having to beat both Venus and Serena Williams, both multiple winners of the All-England title, to take the championship unless the other was first able to knock one off.

Dinara Safina came out on court for her semifinals match at the most storied tennis forum on the planet dressed in a low-rise tennis skirt that revealed her midriff, paunch and all, barely clinging to her hips as if she thought she was hot or maybe cruising johns.  Sorry to burst your bubble, dear, but nobody’s looking.  Apparently she spent so much time on her “fashion statement” that she had little time to actually prepare for her match against five-time Wimbledon champion Venus, who seized the first set in breathtakingly dominent fashion over the so-called “number one” player in the world, grabbing the first five games and breaking Safina’s serve twice with hilarious ease.  Indeed, for much of the set Safina was as much a spectator as a player, and in shocking fashion the actual stands stood half empty throughout the set, as if fans already knew the outcome and had no interest in watching the pathetic spectacle unfold.  The second set unfolded in similar manner (Venus ultimately won 12 of 13 games played in the match, which did not even taken an hour to conclude), the scorecard barely indicating that Safina was on the court at all.  After this brutal drubbing and the one she sustained at the French Open, Safina has been finally and fatally exposed as a hysterical Potemkin fraud. On the American telecast, her coach was shown laughing at her and tennis great turned broadcaster John McEnroe commented that “she looks like she thinks she doesn’t belong on the same court as Venus. She’s not even out there competing. This is inexplicably bad.”  In making that point, Safina was emphatically successful.

Safina has only won two tournaments in 2009; by contrast, she’s been ejected from three tournaments by players not ranked in the world’s top 40, and she’s fallen apart like a qualifier in all three grand slam events.  She is a fraud, and nobody can deny that now.

For her part, Elena “the Demented one” Dementieva played arguably the best match of her life and still lost to Venus’s little sister Serena, though stretching the American to three tough sets and even holding one match point.  This, of course, only served to highlight the pathetic fraud that is Safina, and anyone looking on could see what was really happening:  It was Serena against Serena, not Serena against Elena.  The match would be determined simply by whether the vastly more talented and credentialed American could conquer her own demons, and she ultimately did.  One could not help but remark upon the dramatic difference in quality of match between this semifinal and the French Open final constested by two Russians.  It was as if an entirely different sport was being played, and Wimbledon organizers must surely have been saying prayers of thanks when the all-Russian nightmare was not repeated at the All-England club.

By the end of the day on Thursday of the second week, there were two women and four men left in the men’s and ladies’ draws at Wimbledon. Three of the six, fully half, were Americans even though the American program is in a lull.  Not a single Russian had survived, and America was guaranteed at least one of the two titles.  By the end of the following day, three of the four available spots in the Wimbledon singles finals had been booked by Americans.  Americans also held two of the four finals spots in the doubles competition, giving them a shot at sweeping the board of all four Wimbledon crowns.  When was the last time Russia had such an opporunity? Clue:  It’s never happened.