Late holidays

Only for Russians and Argentines the season is not over yet

The final competition of the year, the Masters Cup in Shanghai, ended the next season on the ATP tour with victory for the Swiss Roger Federer. However, it is too early for leading Russian tennis players to go on vacation. In early December in Moscow, Nikolai Davydenko, Marat Safin, Mikhail Yuzhny and Dmitry Tursunov will have to fight with the Argentine team in the final match of the most prestigious team tournament - the Davis Cup. Last weekend, the captain of our team, Shamil Tarpishchev, officially announced the final squad, although, however, this information did not contain any intrigue.

The need to maintain playing shape in competitive conditions before this important match brought Dmitry Tursunov to the “challenger” category tournament in Dnepropetrovsk. The Russian fully fulfilled the wild card provided to him by the organizers. He reached the final and defeated the German Benjamin Becker - 7:6 (9:7), 6:4. Davydenko was involved in the Masters Cup, Safin and Youzhny were preparing in training mode.

In the outgoing season, the representative of Russia returned to third place in the individual ATP rankings. Last September, Safin lost this high position, then missed several months due to injury, and upon returning to the big court, he performed unsuccessfully for some time and in August even left the top hundred of the world classification for a couple of weeks. Fortunately, Marat found the strength to play out the end of the season with dignity and finished in 26th position. Nikolay Davydenko first entered the top 10 at the end of the 2005 French Open and has never left this elite zone since then. Five titles, including a victory at the Paris Masters, allowed him to receive the status of third racket in the world. If we take into account that the gap between Federer and the Spaniard Rafael Nadal, on the one hand, and all other players of a serious level, on the other, is very large, then we can state that Davydenko achieved almost an ideal result in 2006, leading the second tier of the elite .

ATP tour statistics eloquently demonstrate that Davydenko has the best technique - 35% of points won on someone else's serve. In this nomination, the Russian left behind both Federer and Nadal. Nikolai played a career-high number of matches per season - 97, the same number as the Swiss, but Davydenko will play in the Davis Cup final and theoretically can bring this figure to a hundred. For the first time in his career, the best tennis player in Russia surpassed 2 million in prize money in one year and, according to this indicator, became fourth on the ATP tour of the 2006 season, behind, in addition to Federer and Nadal, the American Andy Roddick. In total, 14 players have increased their bank accounts by more than $1 million since January. Czech Martin Damm earned about half a million dollars without playing singles at all. Playing in a doubles combination brought the all-rounders Swede Jonas Bjorkman and Belarusian Maxim Mirny $740 thousand each, and brothers Mike and Bob Bryan (USA) even more - over $800 thousand.

Tursunov has improved noticeably over the past 12 months. At the beginning of the year he was only 60th in the ranking, in October he entered the top 20 for the first time, and is now in 22nd position. There is progress. Finally, Tursunov achieved the title - he was the best at the September competition in Mumbai (India), and before that he played in the final of the ATP tournament for the first time in Los Angeles. Mikhail Youzhny, who was ranked 54th in the world in August, managed to climb three dozen steps up in a few months, largely thanks to reaching the semifinals of the US Open.

Igor Kunitsyn entered the quartet of the strongest players at the Kremlin Cup for the second time in a row and is still in the top hundred of the world rankings. 18-year-old Evgeniy Korolev, who was unknown to anyone last season, made a lot of noise. Yesterday's junior has victories over such giants as Nikolai Davydenko and Spaniard Carlos Moya; it is difficult to forget his five-set battle at Roland Garros against the former champion of this competition, Argentinean Gaston Gaudio. Korolev and Kunitsyn are the closest reserves of our team, and they will probably improve even more in 2007.

In men's tennis, 2006 was the season of farewell to the great champion Andre Agassi. Already next summer, Federer may overtake him in prize money earned during his career, but is unlikely to be ahead in the number of titles won. The American settled on the number 60; Roger has 45 tournament victories on his record so far. The holidays that have already begun will not last long. The new season starts on the first day of 2007 on the hard courts of Doha (Qatar), Chennai (India) and Adelaide (Australia). Two days earlier, the Hopman Cup, a tournament of mixed teams, starts on the Green Continent. Tursunov and Nadezhda Petrova are nominated from Russia. Our athletes have already won the Davis Cup and the Federation Cup. Now there is a good opportunity to add another team trophy to the collection of domestic tennis prizes.

ATP World RankingN Player Country Points Tournaments

1	Roger Federer	Switzerland	8370	19
2	Rafael Nadal	Spain	4470	19
3	Nikolay Davydenko	Russia	2825	32
4	James Blake	USA	2530	26
5	Ivan Ljubicic	Croatia	2495	22
6	Andy Roddick	USA	2415	21
7	Tommy Robredo	Spain	2375	27
8	David Nalbandyan	Argentina	2295	17
9	Mario Ancic	Croatia	2060	24
10	Fernando Gonzalez	Chile	2015	20
22	Dmitry Tursunov	Russia	1190	34
24	Mikhail Yuzhny	Russia	1075	24
26	Marat Safin	Russia	1015	24
90	Igor Andreev	Russia	445	21
93	Igor Kunitsyn	Russia	443	29

Ilya TRISVIATSKY