Vladimir Nardin: Thushed rows

Russian Alex Bogomolov remained the only representative of domestic tennis in the male solitary discharge of Australian Open-2012.

Already in the first round of the Australian opened championship, Nikolai Davydenko, Mikhail Yuzhny, Dmitry Tursunov, Igor Kunitsyn, as well as young tennis players Alexander Kudryavtsev, departed from further struggle.

The most difficult among them was Kudryavtsev. The athlete’s rating (172nd place in the ATR ranking-associations of tennis players-professional) did not allow him to get a direct ticket to the main stage of the tournament, but the tennis player successfully overcame the qualification barrier, after which he began to wait for the results of the draw. The lot was not too merciful towards Kudryavtsev - the Russian Roger Federer got the Russian in the first circle of Australian Open.

Kudryavtsev lost to the third racket of the planet in three sets, and in the first batch he was able to provide one of the favorites of the Australian Open serious resistance - 5: 7, 2: 6, 2: 6.

At the end of the meeting, the Russian tennis player himself admitted that he was not too upset by the results of the draw, which gave him the right to fight with Federer.

“And I was initially not against playing with him. And at first he did not believe when my good acquaintance said that I got to Roger. Of course, there was very little chance to win. On the other hand, with my rating, not every day it seems to be a chance to meet such an opponent on such a court, ”Kudryavtsev quotes Sport -Express .

As for the more experienced rivals of Kudryavtsev, who came down from a distance at such an early stage, they could be expected more, but they could not secure the tickets in the second circle. Tursunov in four sets lost to Serb Yanko Tyubsarevich, South in five sets lost to the representative of Kazakhstan Andrei Golubev, Kunitsyn in a three -season confrontation suffered a defeat from the Spaniard Pablo Anduhar. Finally, Davydenko gave way to Italian Flavio Chippole, losing to him five sets.

Alex Bogomolov, on the other hand, prevailed over the Spaniard Daniel Himeno, defeating him in three sets. The next rival of Bogomolov will be the Frenchman Michael Llodra.

The fact that Bogomolov is the strongest Russian tennis player confirms his position in the Attician ranking, where he takes 34th place. Following him is Mikhail Yuzhny.

It is interesting that Alex Bogomolov, who previously spoke under the American flag, began to represent Russia only at the end of last year.

And if it were not for his decision to obtain Russian citizenship, in the second circle of the male single category we would not have seen a single compatriot.

In the female part of the program, in which Russia, as usual than in the male, also could not do without loss. Alla Kudryavtseva, Evgenia Rodina, Elena Vesnina, Valeria Savin, Anna Chakvetadze, Vera Dushevina, could not overcome the barrier of the starting circle of Alla Kudryavtseva. Nina Bratchikova, Vera Zvonareva, Ekaterina Makarova, Svetlana Kuznetsova, Maria Sharapova, Nadezhda Petrova, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, Maria Kirilenko took place on the next circle.