Fall of the wall opened gates for tennis invasion (Feature)

By Bill Scott Oct 21, 2009, 5:09 GMT

Berlin - The fall of the Berlin Wall opened the floodgates for talented Eastern European female tennis players, all of them eager to start sharing in the riches of the West.

While Czech pioneers like Martina Navratilova and Ivan Lendl had led the way nearly a decade before as they broke for freedom using the sport as a handy conduit out of their homeland, it was Anna Kournikova in the 1990s who truly sparked the Russian revolution which thrives today.

While Russian Marat Safin held the men's number one ranking - his sister Dinara has made it the first sibling act the top with her WTA top spot - the focus from Russia has always been on the legions of outstanding women players.

A decade and a half after child prodigy Kournikova moved to Florida at the age of nine, the current tennis world has been heavily populated with players from nations formerly under Communist regimes.

Last month, Safina led the way as Russians held 13 of the top 100 spots, with 13 more standing between 100 and 200. Czechs had five spots in the elite, Slovakia four, and former Soviet republics like Belarus and Ukraine each boast three leading players.

Kournikova's journey was blessed from the start by international sports marketing firms, quick to spot the beginnings of what has become a river of talent.

Conditions in the then Commonwealth of Independent States were hardly conducive to tennis training in the early 1990s, due to a cold climate and no money for indoor courts.

'Everything in my life was about tennis and training,' Kournikova told the self-help book Chicken Soup for the Soul.

'Somehow I knew, even though I was just a kid, that I didn't really have many other options. At the time, life in Russia was tough - there weren't that many opportunities there like there are in the United States.'

Moscow-born Kournikova, her mother Alla and father Sergei - both former athletes - made the move to Florida five years before their pig-tailed prodigy turned professional at age 14.

Kournikova stood as high as number one in doubles and eighth in singles, winning 17 doubles crowns but never cracking the singles barrier. Constant back problems eventually forced the pioneer for a generation to give up the game in 2003.

Her Slavic blonde beauty and marketable personality led to a successful career as a spokeswoman for various products and paved the way for the Maria Sharapovas and Elena Dementievas of the current scene.

Sharapova, three times a Grand Slam champion and six years younger than Kournikova is the successor who most fulfilled the dream, winning Wimbledon in 2004 and going onto achieve megastar status.

Highlight of the modern Russian tennis dream occurred in 2004, when the nation won three of the four women's Grand Slam titles - Anastasia Myskina in Paris, Sharapova at Wimbledon and Svetlana Kuznetsova in New York. Compatriot Elena Dementieva as the beaten finalist in two of those finals.

Sharapova, who arrived from Siberia with father Yuri, worked to polish her tennis in Florida.

'It was just impossible (to train steadily in Russia), there were not enough facilities. The weather did not permit it. It was quite expensive at that time because of the limited amount of courts and facilities. It's practically impossible.

'When you have to make those choices you move to a different country, you get accustomed to life and the culture and the way things are, you make friends there, you spend more than half of your life there.

'But I know where my roots are. All my family, apart from my parents, are all in Russia. When I'm home I speak Russian, I read Russian. We're a big Russian family when I'm at home,' she said.