Royal couple

Russia will play against the invincible Belgium national team

Next weekend in Liege, the first round match of the Belgium-Russia Fed Cup will take place on the clay surface of the Hall du Sarthe-Tilman indoor sports complex, whose stands can accommodate 5,000 spectators. Our team is the current holder of the trophy, but the home team is considered the favorite in the upcoming match. After a three-year break, two leading tennis players from this country, former world No. 1s Justine Henin-Hardenne and Kim Clijsters, will play together for Belgium.

Five years ago, the kingdom’s national team beat the Russians in the finals of the most prestigious team tournament, and the same tennis players who will now take to the court in Liege played for both Belgium and Russia in singles. None of the participants in those fights were even 20 years old at the time. The not yet married Enin got the better of Petrova, Clijsters turned out to be much stronger than Dementieva, after which the doubles match had no sporting significance. At that time, the Federation Cup was played in a different format. The eight strongest teams gathered in Spain, held two single-round tournaments in fours, and then the group winners met in the decisive match.

With this triumph, the idyll in the Belgian national team ended. Henin-Hardenne and Clijsters occasionally continued to perform together in the team, invariably bringing them victories, but as soon as it came to the decisive stage, one of these girls or both of them were absent from the lineup for various reasons. Belgium's only defeat, when both Justine and Kim played for it, dates back to 2000 - not yet being elite tennis players, the current team leaders lost to the mighty American team. Taking into account the victorious 2001 season, Henin-Hardenne and Clijsters, being in the same team, won seven consecutive matches played together, after which they went their separate ways. Justine stopped playing for Belgium in the summer of 2003; Kim was on the team every season, but did not take part in all matches. By the way, Clijsters' winning streak in the Fed Cup, taking into account singles and doubles matches, reached 16 matches in a row. Henin-Hardenne lost only one out of 12 meetings within the tournament.

Adding to these impressive numbers is the fact that Justine will be playing in her hometown. The Russian side also has trump cards. Nadezhda Petrova, called up to the national team after a two-year break, has already won three tournaments this season, and distinguished herself in April on green clay in Amelia Island and Charleston. Dementieva is a recognized team fighter; it was through her titanic efforts that our team won the 2005 Federation Cup in an away battle with France. In fact, with such lineups of opponents, neither the results of the draw nor who will be considered the first number in each team and who will be considered second are of fundamental importance.

Dementieva and Clijsters prematurely interrupted their overseas voyage: after the hard Indian Wells and Miami, they did not compete in tournaments held on green clay. Petrova and Henin-Hardenne played last week in Charleston and could have met in the final if not for the Belgian's defeat by Patti Schneider of Switzerland. That is, in terms of who had how much rest before the Fed Cup match, there is a certain parity. It makes sense to pay attention to the statistics of personal meetings. Here the Belgians have a clear advantage. Clijsters and Dementieva have a score of 9:2, and Petrova won all four matches. Henin-Hardenne leads 7:2 in a head-to-head match with Elena, but this season the Belgian lost to the Muscovite in the Indian Wells semifinals - 6:2, 5:7, 5:7. With Nadezhda, Justine has a similar win-loss record of 7:1, including two wins on European clay last year.

Unlike the Davis Cup, where the doubles match is held on the second day of the competition and the third point is played out, in the Federation Cup, battles in the “two-on-two” format are held at the end of the match - they are either a simple formality or decide the outcome of the entire confrontation. Henin-Hardenne has not played as a pair for more than three years, but Petrova, Dementieva and Clijsters have titles in their track records won in company with other girls. If the score is 2:2, then the Russians have a better chance of winning the last match. We, in the language of team sports, have a longer bench. Dinara Safina and Maria Kirilenko are much more famous in the tennis world than Kirsten Flipkens and Caroline Maes. For Clijsters, there is no equal partner in the duet, and each of our four girls performs well in tandem.

Ilya TRISVIATSKY