I am starting to think that the dominance of the Russian female players of 2004 was just a fluke.

So far in 2005, there has been only 3 Russians, Safina, Sharapova, and Zvonareva, who have won a tournament. Also, no Russian has won a major tournament(Australian Open, French Open, and Wimbledon) and it doesn't look like a Russian will be favored to win the US Open.

It seems as if the Russian success in 2004 can be attributed to a lack of form and or injuries from the Williams sisters and the Belgians.

Even though she won the indoor Memphis tournament earlier this year, Zvonareva's results for 2005 are the most pathetic of all the Russians.

Of course now that I have made this observation, the Russians will resume their domination for the remainder of the season.

Dedric

I wouldn't say it's a fluke necessarily, but if the Belgians and the Williamses remain healthy, they aren't going to win as much, that's true. I think it's somewhere inbetween prolonged dominance and a fluke ... other than Sharapova, I don't think the top russian women have the game to consistently threaten Venus, Serena, Kim, and Justine ... nor Lindsay and Amelie on most days, for that matter. They will score a big win here or there, but not beat too many top players in succession. Their presence will be seen, for sure, into the quarters and semis. But I think most of the russian girls are just a slight notch below the very top players in the game. Again, excepting Sharapova.

I'd agree with Gaga's assessment. The way I see it there's one true major Russian star: Sharapova. However, even she probably wouldn't have won so early in her career if the Belgians/Williamses had been around. Myskina and Dementieva are good players in their prime, but wouldn't normally contend for majors. Dementieva's serve is too big a liability and Myskina just doesn't have as big shots as the other top players (and her 2nd serve is pretty weak, too). I think Kuznetsova does have the game but she seems mentally shaky.

But from a longer-time point of view, the dominance of women's tennis by Russians and other eastern Europeans seems inevitable. Most of the top juniors and significant teenaged players are from eastern Europe. The only exceptions I can think of are Golovin (a transplanted Russian), Mirza and Peng. And while I think Mirza and Peng will be good players, I don't expect them to win majors.

Seems to me that when some of the other top players were out of commission, Dementieva stepped into the void with her groundstrokes that I think were really better than anyone else's at that time. Nowadays I think there are a number of players who can hit that hard and that consistently and don't have the serve liability. As boring as she is, I think Svetlana is the best of the Russian bunch with her power and ability to volley, but her chokiness is just killing her. Maria's biggest asset in my opinion is her fighting spirit and Seles-like way of hitting even harder when she's down and never backing away. It's quite intimidating when she's on, but she's still a bit one dimensional compared to Henin or some of the others. If Henin could get healthy I still think she is the best. Sort of like a Hingis with power and amazing fight and resilience. She still seems like the best player in the world to me right now even though she is MIA.

I don't think there is a best player in the world right now. I guess if I absolutely had to pick one player on her best day to wage my life on, I would still pick Serena.

It's hard to accept, because there was always the Evert, Navratilova, Graf, Seles, Hingis, Venus, or Serena to look to and say, "Yes, she is the best player bar none." We're accustomed to it. Ironically, after years of not being able to do that on the men's side, now you can point to Federer as head-and-shoulders above the rest. Still, I don't think there is a definitive best woman in the sport. They're kind of divided into tiers: "the Slam winners" Serena, Venus (moved up), Henin, Sharapova; "the should win Slamers" in Davenport, Mauresmo, Clijsters; "the I can't believe they've won Slamers" Myskina, The Kooz; and the players just below that lot in Pierce, Dementieva, Molik, Zvonereva.

But out of the two top groups of the Williams sisters, Sharapova, Henin, Clijsters, Davenport, and Mauresmo ... I don't think any one of those women is definitively the best in the world.

That's what makes women's tennis so exciting right now. With all the big names healthy and playing well, it adds an element to the game. We're unlikely to see a "fluke" slam winner so long as Serena, Venus, Justine, Kim, Lindsay, Maria and Amelie are all out there at the same time.

Speaking of No. 1 ... Sharapova can become the 15th No. 1 in WTA rankings history with a run to the semifinals (or better) of the JP Morgan Chase tournament. If she's healthy and can shake off the rust early, you have to like her chances of doing so with the depleted draw.

Clijsters is the No. 5 seed, though. The draw won't come up on the tourney web site, so I'd be very interested to know if Sharapova will theoretically have to go through Clijsters to get to the semifinals.

I agree that Serena is probably the best out there when she is dedicated and on her game. She has the best serve and is probably the fastest and has a great competitive drive. However, here comes the criticism, she just doesn't seem 100% dedicated. I think this is why there is so much parity in the women's game these days. No offense, but there is no way that Myskina should be a major winner, and Kuznetsova win was clearly a bit premature. I think Sharapova is the real deal, but she's not a good as Serena yet, and certainly on a slower surface she's not a good as Henin. I think there is a lot of great talent amongst the Russian, but if not for Mauresmo, Capriati, and Venus self destructing at the FO, Myskina would not have won; Davenport's injury and Capriati nerves greatly contributed to Kunetsova's win as well. The Russians are talented, but a lot of luck also contributed to their success.

Serena in 2002 form is superior to anyone else, except on clay, but will Serena ever reach 2002 form again? She's shown she's still a threat to win majors at somewhat less than that, of course.

As to no more surprise slam winners--I'm not so sure. It remains to be seen how healthy the field is going into the US Open. Serena and Lindsay are in questionable health. Venus is certainly back in the mix, but whether we can count on her to consistently play as well as she did at Wimbledon is uncertain. Justine is apparently playing only one hard court event prior to the US Open, so whether she will be able to muster her best form is another unknown. Kim looked awesome at Indian Wells and Miami but has been less impressive since. Sharapova has had solid but unexciting results this year.

I feel it was more on the flukey side. I'll gladly eat crow with the best of them if later proven wrong, but I think Myskina's a one-slam wonder. Kuznetsova is a very instinctive and talented player, but seems to suffer from what I call "Russian head trauma", a symptom very common among her and fellow compatriots Myskina, Dementieva, and Zvonereva. Their heads get in their way. It wouldn't surprise me if Dimentieva becomes a no-slam wonder. Of these four, I think Kuznetsova is the only one who could win another slam.

Like everyone else, I exclude Sharapova from this mix. She plays better tennis when she's down, she doesn't get tentative and destructively emotional like the others. And her serve is a serve, not an embarrassment.

Well, if there are move flukes to come, I have one wish ...

Ladies and Gentlemen, your 2005 US Open Women's Champion, Vera Zvonereva!!!!

Vera needs a little happy in her life. wink

Clijsters is in the other half and the toughest player standing in the way of Sharapova getting to the semis is Hantuchova. Looks pretty good for Maria, assuming the added pressure to get to #1 doesn't bring on some latent "Russian Head Trauma".

[ August 10, 2005, 09:15 AM: Message edited by: curtj ]

Clijsters being in the other half is a God send for Maria's chances. Not that she can't beat Kim, but I'm sure she'd rather not have to worry about it. Her luck running into Belgians when she's had a shot at No. 1 hasn't been so good!

Maria will be number one sooner or later, though, so it might as well be this week.

Bite your tongue! Long live Lindsay! (I'm gonna still hold onto this)

I have always said ranking shmanking. Maria will become #1 by default because Lindsay isn't able to defend her points from last summer. But I have always said that #1 doesn't mean best tennis player. Martina Hingis held the #1 ranking for quite a bit at the end of her career but clearly wasn't the best tennis player. Once she came up against a hard hitter she was blasted off the court. If you play a full schedule and are consistent and make it deep in tournaments you can have the #1 ranking, but be slamless, like Lindsay Davenport. So I mean a #1 ranking for me is irrelevant if the player doesn't back it up with slams.

When Maria becomes number one, she will also be slamless. Her Wimbeldon title is not part of her current rankings. I wondered on another thread if this will constantly be brought up like it has been for Lindsay, and like it was for Kim and Amelie.

It is so tough right now to pick a number one, with so many contenders for major titles. I do not agree that Venus and Serena are the best players out there, but they certainly are capable of winning any tournament they enter. Same for Maria. Justine is always a threat, but can't stay healthy. Lindsay, Kim, and Amelie are all capable, but haven't been able to lately. It's really a different time than it was when one or two people dominated, and that is certainly great for the game.

I'll take a women's match over a men's anyday.

I like this guy already!

I think a difference might be that Lindsay hasn't won a major in 5 years, and Maria's slam came just over a year ago. As for Kim and Amelie, they have yet to win so that might be another argument all together. It seems more was made of this when Hingis and Davenport were both #1 without a slam in there points total. It is more common now so I don't think it will be as big a deal. At first it bothered me that a player could be #1 without a slam, but looking at the current line up of grand slam champs, I can't say that any of them would really deserve to be the #1 ranked player.

I agree. The ability of players to attain No. 1 without winning Slams has been a byproduct of the increased depth in women's tennis. Anyone in the top ten can win a Slam these days. It's a trade off. Being number one nowadays doesn't necessarily mean what it did in 1988, but that's not to say the players who are ranked in the top spot don't deserve to be there. You can't fault someone for playing well consistently. The next evolution for the women's game will come when the top players all play that consisently at the same time and then you'll start to see the rankings reflect the results again. But I don't see that happening with this generation. It's for the future.

I agree. People worry too much over whether the player with the #1 ranking is really the best in the world. The ranking system is just there to seed tournaments, and it does an adequate job of that. We don't happen to have a clear #1 at the moment and that's actually been the situation more often than not since 1997. Actually, when you think about how often people are injured and how being the best in tennis requires excelling on different surfaces, it's really astonishing that anybody can be a dominant #1 for years. The rankings are more problematic in men's tennis than women's because while Federer at #1 is easy) players strength varies so much from surface to surface. Sampras having the #1 seed at the French year after year was certainly far more absurd than anything we've ever seen on the women's side.

You know I've always wondered why the French Open doesn't have a discretionary seeding policy. Wimbledon does and I think for the most part it is fair. It is silly that Sampras was a top seed and it is equally ridiculous that Roddick is so high. Based on past performances neither is really a top ten seed, although Sampras made it to the semis one year. It would be more fair if the top clay courters were seeded to meet in the later rounds rather than the possibility of playing each other earlier in the tournament.

it was clear that the russians came in at the right time--- Williams sisters injured and belgians too... remains to be seen now that these girls are back and kicking asses now...

I agree. The injuries to the top girls (Williams, Belgians, Capriati, Lindsay) made the russians top girls by default. With all the top girls healthy, Myskina and Kuznetsova would never risen to the top of the Grand Slams.

The russian invasion of last year is as valid as all those slams Graf won after Monica (The True #1) got stabbed in Hamburg.

Steffi Graf is my favorite female tennis player of all time but I have to agree. Monica had started to turn the tables on Graf and I think would've dominated their rivalry had it not been for the stabbing. Monica's stabbing was one of the truly worst incidents ever in sports history...not just tennis history, but sports history. We were cheated out of what may have been the best rivalry ever, eclipsing Chris and Martina

Sometimes it's funny to look back at threads from the past. It's funny to see things like "The Red Sox will never win a world series" and "your computer will never need more than 16 MG of RAM." Well, OK, this thread isn't that old but one thing for me has changed.

It seems a few of us agreed that the Russian "dominance" of '04 was flukey. To me, that hasn't changed. But I have to admit, one thing has... my view on Maria Sharapova. Of all the other Russians, she seems to suffer much less from Russian Head Trauma than the likes of Zvonereva, Dimentieva, and Myskina. But there's no denying her results this year. One thing MJ Fernandez said at the YEC I thought was interesting, is that it's the first time she had negative body language, and that she seemed to have conceded to the fact she was going to lose to Mauresmo...something many of us have never seen in Sharapova.

She's always fought her way through. Yes, Mauresmo played well all week, and (finally) got what she deserved. But after that loss, this year's results (especially that double-bagel that Lindsay fed her) and her increasingly tired "but I'm only 17/18" excuses, I'm starting to think of Sharapova as part of the "flukey Russians of '04 clique" as well.

You know, it was bugging me when they kept saying that they'd never seen pouty body language from Maria Sharapova, because I had - one year ago, the 2004 match she lost to Mauresmo in round robin competition at the Championships. She acted exactly the same way. That attitude is certainly uncharacteristic of Maria, but I think it's more that she doesn't like playing Amelie than anything else.

In fact, it wouldn't surprise me to find out Sharapova had the same kind of attitude when she lost to Justine Henin-Hardenne several times during the clay season, although I don't recall watching those matches. I'm just guessing.

Maria is very young and she has rocketed to front-and-center of the women's tennis universe, so I think she's a little petulant about how easy it was to get there. She wants to go out and slug the ball, which is what most of the top women do in some form. But all the spins and changes of pace from Mauresmo bother Maria, clearly. I think that's what was going on. And until Maria grows up and realizes that not everyone is going to hit the ball exactly how you like it to be struck, she'll continue to lose to Amelie.

But I don't think Sharapova is a "fluke" in the manner of the other recent Russian champions. She was the most consistent Slam performer in 2005, despite not making a final, and she lost to the eventual champion at all four Slams and the YEC. That's pretty impressive. Maria is going to be around for a while, barring injury, and there are more Slams in her future.

One thing you have to keep in mind with Sharapova is that everybody else in the top 15 except Vaidisova figures to be a weaker player 3-5 years from today, if they're playing at all. So yeah, I'd still be very surprised if Maria didn't win more majors--though I must say she sure seems to have trouble bouncing back after losing tiebreakers.

Sharapova has a hard time with Mauresmo in the same way that Capriati did -- because M. doesn't give consistent pace, as G4G points out.

I also think that the level of top competition on the women's tour is going to get a lot thinner. If JHH gets her health together, she could still be a force in 3-5 years, but that's big if given the injury-inducing grind of the tour. I suppose Vaidisova, Ivanovic and Groenfeld (and who knows who else) could surprise and become major forces, but that wouldn't be my bet. Well, someone has to, by default.

Vaidisova might surpass Maria, but she's not going to win all of them. The others are good, but I don't see any reason why they should become better than Maria. Ditto for Karatancheva. One other player who might matter soon is Michaella Krajicek. She's only 16 and just won her first WTA event in Tashkent, pushing to #58.

Don't forget about Mirza and the coming Chinesse Revolution. I think Dementieva will still be playing at a high level in 3-5 years. Also, even though this year was horrible, I think Kuznetsova was not a fluke. She has the game already (as was evidenced by her Open win), and has a lot of room for growth-adding variety to her game, coming forward more effectively, to name a few, to be a force for several years to come. Here's hoping...she is my favorite player-elect, once Lindsay, Amelie, Kim, and Monica are gone for good. wink

Sharapova isn't my my favorite player, but I do enjoy watching her because she tends to go for broke when she's losing.

Her match against Mauresmo was different in that regard -- she definitely had a loser's resigned attitude before Mauresmo had finished defeating her at the YEC. Still, I'd attribute that more to injury (both commentators kept noting how much slower her serve had become) than being intimidated.

What I wonder about is this: to be honest, Sharapova seemed like she didn't care. She actually smiled a bit in those last games. Odd. Henin-Hardenne has been a bit similar -- tons of bewildered smirks at coaches/loved ones -- when her train has run off the tracks at the last two US Opens.

In Sharapova's case, she was defending a title, so the fact that the YEC isn't a slam doesn't completely hold as a reason for not having her usual fight. Maybe she was just hurt and resigned to defeat? But coupled with Clijsters' jetlag comments, I can't help but wonder how much titles mean to the players these days when they've already made big money and won a slam or two. Can we blame them? Not every match is a career turning point, let alone a matter of life and death.

I don't mean to infer that players don't try, or worse yet that they use injuries as excuses. Peter Bodo is shameful in that regard. Does that guy have any idea what tennis is like these days, or how long an injury can last? He probably hasn't run more than 20 feet in the last two decades. Some people on this board whose candor I enjoy have been castigated for mocking players, but none of their comments come close to Bodo's cruelty. He bemoans how the sport is falling apart yet at the same time he treats tennis players like they are circus performers at his kingly command.

Bottom line: with so many great players right now, the ones who are fittest and hungriest going into a particular tournament tend to be the ones that emerge victorious, while players with ailments, or players who happen to be in laurel-resting mode (hey Serena!) wipeout.

Getting back to the Russians, Sharapova has some more slams in her, but she needs to develop her game. I would love it if the Kooz got another one, though I don't know if she will. As for Myskina, I think tricky Dementieva actually has a better chance. Haven't seen enough of Vaidisova yet, but I'm not impressed at all with Sesil(sp) K. She was softballing up a storm at the US Open and then Mauresmo whupped her ass.