TENNIS: YOU MAY well have forgotten Vera Zvonareva. She reached the final of Wimbledon last year, the US Open too then sort of drifted out of view. She didn't go anywhere, do anything different from banging the ball hard from the back of the court, punching two handed from the back side, her face full of serious intent, tucked beneath a white visor with nothing but sound coming out. Still it got her ranking to number three in the world, when hardly anyone was looking.
The Russian Zvonareva, the student at the Diplomatic Academy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the 26-year-old Russian, who reads Tolstoy, the “promoter of gender equality” with Unesco, who has a degree in Physical Education, is studying International Economic Relations and is in the process of writing a 30,000-word thesis on “how to increase the competitiveness of Russian products on the international market”.
She may well include herself in that dissertation having treaded water before last season’s eruption in the Grand Slams. That’s Russian competitiveness. The second seed at this year’s 125th birthday party for Wimbledon, Zvonareva would probably not refer to the Napoleon tomb in Paris as the place “that little dead dude’s buried”. Take a bow Jennifer Capriati, we love you for that one.
Zvonareva is now more highly regarded though not nearly as visible as Maria Sharapova, who plays today. But yesterday she cleared a path into the second round against America’s Alison Riske with the balls booming across the net.
Riske, whose father Al is a retired secret service agent and FBI investigator, leant a certain covert mystery to this meeting and as befits the first day there was almost a twist in the plot for the Russian as she was rattled by the American in the second before pulling out the third set 6-0, 3-6, 6-3.
The 26-year-old Muscovite typifies this year’s draw decimated by rain yesterday. That Venus and Serena Williams and a rehabilitated Sharapova can arrive in the UK and immediately command the attention continues to both haunt and juice up the women’s game. Of the top 10 players just four have won majors, and Na Li won her first just two weeks ago. Number one seed Caroline Wozniacki, Zvonareva, Victoria Azerenka, Petra Kvitova, Marion Bartoli and Samantha Stosur have never done.
These two weeks will draw opinions on the women’s game. Venus Williams is through. So is Zvonareva, who along with the other six non-major winners are under a peculiar type of microscope. Judgement fortnight.
