View of the Kremlin

The Moscow Tennis Tournament starts the participants of the famous Moscow tennis tournament for the Kremlin Cup sometimes have no more chance of seeing gear-brown charms than a broom. Tennis players go to work on Mira Avenue, and live if through a river from Red Square - it is still not close. How to see a lot from the window, and there are too few time for walks with professional tennis players. True, sometimes some stars (and not necessarily foreign) come to Moscow exclusively with tourist and wrestling goals, but this year such a practice seems to be not developed.

For example, Masha Sharapova, who debuted a year ago at the Kremlin’s Cup “outside the competition” (the arrival of Siberian from Florida was furnished almost like a recent Madonium visit, and the tennis in the program, in fact, was not listed seriously. In an interview on the eve of the current appearance in Moscow, Sharapova stated that she was counting and ready to speak much better than last year (then, recall, Masha was able to pass only one round, and even then, due to the injury of her rival, Anna-Lena Grenefeld, and in the second lost to Dinar Safina).

This time, success in the tournament, incoming, by the way, in the WTA super -girl, Sharapova called one of the priority goals of the autumn stage of the season. "Last year, for a number of reasons, including because of the injury, I was clearly not ready to perform well in Moscow, but even then I told myself that I should rehabilitate myself in front of the Moscow public. This year everything is different: I feel great, I am ready to show my best tennis and, perhaps, even win the tournament. I did not regret last year’s experience. The country that I consider to be my home, and the game in front of its fans. "

To improve last year's result, Sharapova is probably in strength, but you need to talk about trophy ambitions with caution. According to tradition, the composition of the Kremlin Cup is very strong: in 2006, in particular, six tennis players from the First World War are include in the application sheet (led by the leader of the WTA rating list by Frenchman Amelie Mororemo), and the list of those who got into the grid without a qualification and special invitations, the 52nd racket of the world Elena Vesnina. In general, in order to evaluate the representativeness of the Moscow women's tournament, it is enough to look at the list of the champions. It is opened by the famous Spanish Condource Martinez, who won in 1996, the year of joining the Kremlin Cup; Following, it is important to marched by Czech Yana Novota, who in 1997 was a step away from the top of her career (the next summer, Novota won Wimbledon). By the way, to the Russians, at that time, to the tennis peaks, it was like a broom to the Kremlin, and only in 2003 Anastasia Myskina diluted the foreign legion, alas, which was injured on the eve of the next Moscow fee and left the game until the end of the season.

The male tournament has never different the solidity of the composition, and the champions list such openly high-standing personalities as the German Carl-Uh Stebe, Frenchman Paul-Henri Mathieu or American Taylor Dent. But it was precisely from the men's tournament, which was born with a frail competition of the "district scale", that all began, so that he could not occupy respect. In addition, the Russians support the more or less solid status of the male part of the Kremlin Cup. This year, all the heroes of the recent semifinals of the Davis Cup, as well as the arrival without laurels and practice Nikolai Davydenko, will play in the Olympic.

The first number of Russian male tennis is especially counting on the Kremlin Cup. Not only and not so much because in September he never had a chance to appear before the Moscow public. It is more important that Davydenko wages the struggle for getting into the eight according to the results of the season, and each rating score for him is really worth the weight of gold, because even the trip to the Asia Minor World Cup in Shanghai is paid by a ringing coin.

In the near future, however, the Kremlin Cup itself will rise in price. The President of the Russian Tennis Federation Shamil Tarpishchev announced on Thursday at a press conference that since 2009, the male half of the Moscow tournament also has a chance to get into the elite "nine". Then it will be possible to wait for the appearance in the "Olympic" star of the first magnitude. In the meantime, we admire the composition of the women's tournament, and in the male energy with the usual energy we will be closely for our own.

Kremlin Cup. All champions

Year of a woman of a woman

1990 A. Cherkasov (USSR) -

1991 A. Cherkasov (USSR) -

1992 M. Ross (Switzerland) -

1993 M. Ross (Switzerland) -

1994 A. Volkov (Russia) -

1995 K.-U. Steet (Germany) -

1996 Ivanishevich (Croatia) K. Martinez (Spain)

1997 E. Kafelnikov (Russia) Ya. Novota (Czech Republic)

1998 E. Kafelnikov (Russia) M. Pier (France)

1999 E. Kafelnikov (Russia) N. Tozia (France)

2000 E. Kafelnikov (Russia) M. Hingis (Switzerland)

2001 E. Kafelnikov (Russia) E. Dokich (Australia)

2002 P.A. Mathieu (France) M. Maleeva (Bulgaria)

2003 T. Dent (USA) A. Myskina (Russia)

2004 N. Davydenko (Russia) A. Myskina (Russia)

2005 I. Andreev (Russia) M. Pier (France)

05.10.2006 / Alexander Shmornov, the material was published in the newspaper No. 182 dated 06.10.2006.