Spectacular Russian Failure at the US Open

Play began at this year’s U.S. Open tennis tournament on Monday, August 29, 2011, with 21 Russians represented in the main draws. Only France and the USA had contingents of equal or larger size at the year’s final grand slam event, so Russia might have taken some pride in the achievement.

But within days, Russia probably wished it had skipped the tournament entirely.

Before play had begun on Wednesday, August 31, a mere two days in, 11 of those 21 Russians were gone.  Only the USA saw more players eliminated from the draws in the first two days, but the USA had one-third more entries in the draw and as a result lost only one-third of its contingent. It had twice as many active players going into day three as Russia. Russia’s contingent had been cut by more than half and the tournament had hardly even begun.

And it wasn’t just Russia’s second-rate players who were cut down. Russia’s top-seeded male player, Mikhail Youzhny, lost his first-round match to an unseeded opponent in woefully noncompetitive fashion, showing the way to ten of his fellow Russians out the U.S. Open’s swinging door.

Russia’s next major humiliation was provided by Maria Sharapova, the country’s second-highest-seeded female player, in the third round.

Russian Sin in Cincinnati

Such a mysterious (and painful) orb!

The stadium court in Cincinnati, Ohio, stood humiliatingly half empty on August 21st as the women’s final of the WTA’s Western & Southern Open began.

The reason was simple: Russia’s second best player, the hapless and grating Maria Sharapova was playing. Had a second Russian stood on the court opposite, the place might well have been entirely vacant.

Pain and Humiliation for Russia at the All-England Club

The third round of play at the All-England Club this year was utterly disastrous for Russian female tennis players .

It never ceases to amaze us how so many Russians will, when confronted by evidence of catastrophic failure like this, seek to rationalize it rather than to demand reform — the very thing they do in politics and all other aspects of their lives.  Instead of calling for improvement by Russia, they invariably point to failures by other countries, as if that made it OK for Russia to fail.

It reminds us of the old Soviet-era joke:  An American walks up to a hotel desk clerk in Moscow and complains loudly about the shockingly poor accommodations in his Russian hotel room. The clerk responds:  “Yes, but you lynch blacks.”  The result of this attitude was that the USSR never improved, collapsed and disappeared into the ashcan of history.  And, or so it seems, Russians have learned absolutely nothing from that experience.

In the third round at Wimbledon 2011, both Russia’s top seed, world #3 Vera Zvonareva, and its third seed, world #12 Svetlana Kuznetsova, were cruelly slaughtered by lower-ranked opponents. Zvonareva, supposedly Russia’ s best player, suffered particularly intense humiliation, getting blasted off the court in easy straight sets  by the tournaments’s lowest seed, a Bulgarian not ranked in the top 30 (and we report elsewhere in today’s issue on how the Bulgarians recently thumbed their noses at Russia over World War II  – ouch!).

Declining Russia, which some idiots used to refer to as “dominant” in the sport, had a pathetic six seeds going into the tournament, and now two of the top three were gone before the fourth round could begin.  What’s more, the #14 seed Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova had already lost in the second round, as had the #28 seed Ekaterina Makarova.  After Kuznetsova and Zvonareva went down, this left only two Russian seeds with a chance of getting as far as the fourth round.

Russia Comes a Cropper at Roland Garros

Another one of those days for our gal Shamapova

So-called “Russian” female tennis player Maria Sharapova has described herself as “cow on ice” when it comes to playing on the red clay of Stade Roland Garros at the French Open grand slam event (“shrieking cow on ice” would be a little more accurate).  And it did not take her long to prove it in her semifinals match against Chinese journeywoman Na Li.

Sharapova went down in straight sets and had her serve broken a shocking five times by the diminutive opponent, who is five years her senior and seven inches shorter and has never won a grand-slam title and had only beaten Sharapova twice in seven prior meetings. Our gal Shamapova struck a pathetic 12 winners compared to a whopping 28 unforced errors, served no aces and a ghastly ten double faults.  It was another classic Shamapova implosion, occuring with Sharapova just two matches from a career grand slam.  Likely she’ll never get that close again.

But say this for the “Russian” who lives in America and spends no time in her so-called country:  She was by far the class of the Russian field.

Russians, Melting in the Hot Miami Sunshine

Yeah, kinda sucks to be Russian. We feel you, Vera.

Those clever Russians had a little brainstorm for the major WTA Tour event in Miami, Florida, USA:  What if, they thought, we put our #1 and #3 female players on the same doubles team. Has to be a good result, right?

Wrong.

When #1 Vera Zvonareva (world #3) and #3 Svetlana Kuznetsova (world #15) stepped on the court for their second match of the Sony Ericsson tournament, they were blown off the court with the greatest of ease by a Spanish team composed of players ranked a lowly #33 and #77.

Ouch. Back to the drawing board, Russians.  Or maybe set fire to the drawing board and consider ping pong, or curling?

Then came the singles, where things got even uglier.

White Sun of American Desert Scorches Russian Female Tennis Players

More spectacular Russian female failure on the tennis court to report. Surprise, surprise.

Russia placed seven seeds into the 32-seed draw at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, California last week, but only one in the top 10 and only two in the top 15.  Russia, you may have heard, is slipping.

And then it got worse.

Both of Russia’s two top seeds (#3 Vera Zvonareva and #11 Svetlana Kuznetsova) and three of its top four seeds (adding #17 Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova) were blasted out of the major event before stepping on the court for their third matches.  A fifth seed, #24 Maria Kirilenko, likewise lost her second match.

EDITORIAL: Maria Sharapova, Russian to the Rotten Core

EDITORIAL

Maria Sharapova, Russian to the Rotten Core

“We are going to go out and fight. We never give up and that’s not what our country is known for, and we are going to go out there and battle for what is ours.”

That was Russian tennis player Maria Sharapova talking, shortly after losing her Fed Cup match in Moscow in easy, non-competitive straight sets  3-6, 4-6 to France’s Virginie Razzano, the lowly world number 83.  Sharapova may well have found it hard to get inspired by patriotism paying in and a for a country in which she spends hardly any time. She lives in the USA, owns lots of property there, and is engaged to a non-Russian who does likewise.

And what did Shamapova do after making this bold statement? She promptly quit.  She was replaced in the second-round singles match by countrywoman Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in the desperate hope of eking out a win against the unheralded and hopelessly out-gunned French squad.  What’s more, the fourth member of Russia’s Fed Cup team, Dinara Safina, did not even set foot on the court. Sharapova then promptly also quit her next scheduled tournament, claiming she had a cold. Russians fighting on? As if.

Sharapova was, of course, simply lying (in classic Russian fashion) when she said Russia is “not known for giving up.”  In fact, that’s exactly what Russia is known for, in every walk of life, all throughout history.  When the going gets tough the Russians get going, right out the “Exit” door.  When democracy is too tough, they opt for dictatorship. When a tennis match is too tough, they quit.  As such, Shamapova proves herself 100% Russian to the core with her behavior in Moscow.

EDITORIAL: Russian Women’s Tennis in Decline

EDITORIAL

Russian Women’s Tennis in Decline

Not that it was ever that great to begin with, but Russian women’s tennis ended 2010 in marked decline.  We continue to see it as a perfect metaphor for Putin’s Russia — all illusion, no substance when you look beneath the shoddy, dishonest propaganda.

Russia now has only one player ranked in the top ten in the world.  Going into the year-end WTA Tour Championships in Doha, Qatar last week it had two, and they were Russia’s sole representatives at the eight-player event.  But the first, Elena Dementieva, was blown off the court in round-robin play, failed to advance to the elimination rounds and promptly announced her retirement from the sport.

And then there was one.

Shame and Humiliation for Russian Tennis in Moscow

Russian women’s tennis reached a new low last week at the Kremlin Cup in Moscow.

Russia currently has six players ranked in the world’s top 20, a shocking comedown from its position in prior years (America currently has more top-five players than Russia does).  Two-thirds of these Russian players, four of the six, spurned the Kremlin Cup entirely. They were not even interested in stepping on the court for their own country’s most prestigious tournament.  The roll of shame:  Vera Zvonareva, Yelena Dementieva,  Nadia Petrova and Maria Sharapova.

Only the lowest two of the top six deigned to appear in the own country’s tournament:  Maria Kirilenko and Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.

Pavlyuchenkova lost her opening round match to an unseeded non-Russian. Kirlenko reached the finals, where she lost in easy straight sets to a non-Russian who was not even the tournament’s top seed.  From beginning to end, Russian players produced nothing but disgrace and humiliation for their country, confirming that it remains a sports backwater even among Russians and that Russians simply can’t compete against foreign rivals.

“Dominant” Russians? We think not.

Slaughter, humiliation and woe for Russia in the Big Apple

Fully one-fourth of the 32 women in the draw at the final grand slam tennis tournament of 2010, the U.S. Open in New York City, were Russians.  But if based on that you expected big things from the Land of Putin on the court, you were sadly mistaken.

It was nothing but slaughter, humiliation and woe once again for the Russians, who are ruining the very sport that gives them their living, making it an unwatchable charade.

Annals of Shamapova

Darn those pesky old tennis balls!

If we were to tell you that so-called “Russian” tennis player Maria Sharapova won a match against a top-ten opponent despite having her own serve broken six times while serving a shocking fifteen — yes, fifteen, nearly four full games’ worth of — double faults, we bet we know how you’d respond.

“She must have been playing a Russian,” you’d quip.

And you’d be right.

Annals of Russia’s Female Tennis Sham

Ouch.

World #14 Maria “Shamapova” continued her humiliating losing ways in the opening round of the year’s first grand-slam tennis tournament, the Australian Open, getting thrashed in her very first match of the tournament by lowly World #58 Maria Kirilenko (who’s actually a threat to steal Sharapova’s “#1 Russian tennis babe” crown as well).  You just got here, darling!  Leaving so soon?

Maria, it must be admitted, is not the only Russian sham in town.

Annals of Shamapova

Well, at least she's still got her looks . . . er . . . that's not a hint of mustache we spy, is it? Did anyone say Maria ShaROIDpova?

If we told you than none of the top 5 seeds made it as far as the semi-finals in last weeks WTA tour event in Los Angeles, California, it probably wouldn’t surprise you to learn that three of those five, including the top two, were Russians. None of the players ranked #2-#6 in the world even showed up, so the going was hardly difficult. 

But the Russians still couldn’t hang.  Least of all Maria Sharoidpova.

Annals of Shamapova

Another ouchie for the lanky "Russian"

Last week we exposed the outrageous rigging of the Wimbledon ladies’ draw in favor of “Russian” Maria Sharapova, who was given a seed her ranking did not merit — the only player to receive such a gift.  Tournament organizers freely admitted they were doing it to build interest in the tournament, which offered the propsect of repeating the all-Russian final seen at the French Open a month earlier — one of the worst grand slam finals in tennis history, unwatchable and indeed simply embarrassing from start to finish.  Tournament bigwigs were right to worry, since a few more grand slam finals like that and the entire sport would be washed up.   But rigging the draw for cheap theatrics is no answer.

In her second match at the All-England Club, Sharapova met journeywoman Gisela Dulko of Argentina.  Ranked #45 in the world, well ahead of Sharapova at #59, Dulko should have been expected to win the match (even though she had only won three games in four previous sets against the “Russian”). But if we believed the Wimbledon organizers and their seeding, it was going to be Sharapova who easily prevailed against her unseeded rival.

The organizers fraud was exposed and Sharapova went down in flames. 

Annals of Shamapova

Yummy!

*THWACK*

That was the sound of world #39 Ukrainian Alona Bondarenko smacking the cute, round little backside of world #126 “Russian” Maria Sharapova (126?? how the “mighty” have fallen!)  at the WTA tour event in Warsaw, Poland last week.  Able to win only four of sixteen games played in her third match of the first tournament she has played after months claiming injury, Sharapova was blown off the court in humiliating fashion by a player who has only one career singles title and, worst of all, who — unlike Shamapova — actually lives in the country of her citizenship.

Annals of Shamapova

If to judge from this cheesecake photograph, there was a time early in Maria Sharapova’s career when she felt she needed something to fall back on in the event her tennis career didn’t work out, and that thing, she decided, should be streetwalking.  Say what you like about her tennis skills, she’s a great little piece of ass, isn’t she?

Sharapova may have shown considerable prescience.  Last week she dropped out of the top 10 in the tennis rankings, falling 8 places from #9 to a lowly #17 as 10-time grand slam champion American Serena Williams took over the #1 spot for the third time in her career.  Williams now holds more grand slam titles all by herself than all Russian citizens who have ever played the game in its entire history, male and female, combined.

We continue to see Shamapova (as we like to call her) as a perfect microcosm of Russia itself, elevating form over substance and confusing luck with skill to create a ridiculous amount of hype totally inconsistent with reality.  Sharapova  hasn’t won a tennis tournament since she lucked out to face an unseeded Slovakian player not ranked in the world’s top 30 in the finals of the Tier II event at Amelia Island in April 2008, nearly one year ago.  Throughout that tournament, Sharapova never had to face a player ranked in the world’s top 20.  In the past year she’s recorded exactly one match victory over a top-ten opponent.

Annals of Shamapova

Maria Sharapova explains herself

READ MORE COVERAGE OF MARIA’S SHOCKING EXPLOITS HERE.

The feeble Maria Sharapova, who is just about to drop from #9 to #10 in the world rankings (and who has protection from being booted out of the top 10 entirely only because #11 is her even more pathetic countrywoman Nadia Petrova) has announced she will not play the first grand slam tournament of the year, in Australia. She attempted to blame her withdrawal on a nagging shoulder injury, then admitted in fact it’s just plain cowardice:  “My shoulder is doing great, but I just started training a few weeks ago and I am just not near the level I need to be to compete at the highest levels.”  In other words:  “I might struggle so I’m going to hide instead.”