Translated material
Grounded stars
Nadal and Nalbandian willingly played in national level tournaments
According to the tennis calendar, December is considered a month of rest for the world's leading players, gathering their strength before the January start of the new season. Indeed, after the Davis Cup final three weeks ago, the international schedule included only a few tournaments in the “challenger”, “satellite” and “futures” categories, in which players from the third, fourth and further hundreds of the world rankings take part. But to believe that absolutely all members of the elite spend time at resorts or doing household chores at this time is a fallacy. National federations of a number of countries use the window in the calendar that arose in the last month of the year to hold internal championships. And not like in Russia, where mostly young and promising tennis players fight for the official title of national champion, but in the most full-fledged tournaments.The best French tennis players approached the national title with the utmost seriousness. The Final Four of the men's national championship in a club format was held in Rouen on an indoor clay court. In the decisive match, Paris prevailed over Rennes, and the winners included such famous players as world number 18 Richard Gasquet, black Gal Monfils, and 2002 Kremlin Cup winner Paul-Henri Mathieu. The Parisians did without foreign legionnaires, but the German Philipp Kohlschreiber and the finalist of the ATP tournament in Munich, the Belgian Christoph Fliegen, played for Rennes. Another participant in the Final Four, Lille, had another Belgian citizen, Christophe Rochus, as its most notable figure. At the early stage of the championship in November, Russian Yuri Shchukin played for Illberg from Mulhouse.
Unlike the French, the Dutch held an individual men's championship. The country's first racket Ramon Sluiter, familiar to us from the quarterfinal match of the victorious Davis Cup for Russia in 2006 (then he lost to Dmitry Tursunov in a dramatic fight with three tiebreakers), was unable to win the domestic title, unexpectedly failing to cope with the little-known Robin Haase.
The Spaniards competed for the awards of their championship back in September, leaving battles for the club title and a couple of national Masters at the end of the season, one of which even included the second number in the ATP ranking, two-time Roland Garros winner Rafael Nadal. Barcelona, playing in the traditional blue-garnet colors (Felix Mantilla, Alberto Montanez, Nicolas Almagro, etc.), supported the reputation of their club on the court, defeating Valencia in a dramatic battle - 5:4. The organizers deliberately held the final at a time so that football fans of both clubs would be free. They cheered for the tennis players with pleasure, creating a decent stir. Rafael Nadal gave his best at the national level, winning the domestic Spanish Masters in Malaga, and in Granada a similar title went to Juan Carlos Ferrero.
The best Argentine tennis players are also sensitive to home competitions. True, to strengthen the roster of participants, they invite players from neighboring countries in South America. After the Davis Cup final, David Nalbandian, who played excellently in Moscow, held two tournaments in Argentina. At the local Masters, he achieved success, upsetting the two-time Olympic champion of Athens, Chilean Nicolas Massa, but a week later in Buenos Aires, David was disappointed - in the quarterfinals he failed to cope with Ecuadorian Nicolas Lapentti. In the main match of the Argentine Open Cup, to the delight of the public, Guillermo Cañas left the same Massa out of action. Our Dmitry Tursunov, who permanently resides in the USA, also stopped by the Argentine capital for a few days. At the Guillermo Vilas Cup, he suffered defeats to Agustin Calleri and Gaston Gaudio, eventually finishing last out of four competitors.
For now, Russian players have to sort things out among themselves exclusively at major ATP and WTA tournaments. Our championship in the second half of the 90s, for various reasons (mainly financial), was not held at all, but was resumed in 2000. The title of Russian champion is held by the winner of the last Kremlin Cup, Anna Chakvetadze, but when she received the internal title, she was known only to a narrow circle of specialists. Every summer our compatriots find the time and opportunity to play in the US club league, but how interesting it would be if, for example, Elena Dementieva fought for CSKA against Spartak player Anastasia Myskina as part of our team championship. So far, we have to talk about this fight in this form only purely theoretically.