Last Updated on November 12, 2019
The President of the FTR Shamil Tarpishchev summed up the year and shared his expectations for the next season. “The past season was marked by a number of important victories won by Russian tennis players in the international arena, which allow us to generally positively assess the 2018th year and look to the future with optimism. Perhaps the brightest event for the Russian fans was the XXIX tennis tournament “VTB Kremlin Cup”, which this year was visited by a record number of spectators – over 80 thousand people. The first Russian champions, the winners of the “Big Helmets” and the Olympic Games, were born at this largest long-lived tournament in our country, which played a strategic role in the development of domestic tennis. It was around the “Kremlin Cup” that the backbone of professional tennis in the country was gradually formed: from athletes, coaches and ending with top-level judges and top-level sports functionaries. In 2018, representatives of national tennis continued the victorious traditions of their glorious predecessors: Daria Kasatkina and Karen Khachanov managed to win a double victory in singles, repeating the success of 2007, when Elena Dementieva and Nikolay Davydenko became champions of the capital’s competitions. Despite the fact that the composition of the women’s tournament was one of the strongest in the entire history, it was the representative of Russian tennis – a 21-year-old native of Togliatti, Darya Kasatkina – who managed to win the main trophy. This victory allowed our young tennis player for the first time to rise to the tenth line of the WTA world ranking. At the last capital tournament, Anastasia Potapova made her debut in the main draw of the VTB Kremlin Cup at the last capital tournament. This season has become a real breakthrough for the seventeen-year-old athlete who has reached the Top 100. At the debut summer tournament of the Moscow River Cup 2018, she reached the WTA singles finals for the first time and won the first doubles title there. Later, Anastasia will reach the final again – in Tashkent, where the title will eventually be given to her compatriot Margarita Gasparyan, who has regained her form and returned to the Top 100 of the WTA world ranking. It is worth noting the success in the qualifying tournament, “VTB Kremlin Cup” Vlada Koval, who beat one of the strongest German tennis players, Sabina Lisitski. This is good news. After the nine-year break, the 22-year-old Karen Khachanov excelled in the men’s tournament “VTB Kremlin Cup”, who spent the entire tournament in a brilliant style, and in the final was a head taller than Frenchman Adrian Mannarino. The victory in the “Olympic” was the logical conclusion of the best career in the season Khachanova. After all, this year Karen won his second single ATP title in Marseille, made a decisive contribution to the Russian team’s cup victory over the Belarusian team and won the home tournament in Moscow. Following this triumph was followed by a sensational victory at the Masters in Paris Bercy, where Khachanov made a real feat – went on the way to the title of many cool players, including the future first racket of the world Novak Djokovic, and gave us all a real celebration. This result can be called truly outstanding. This season was also very successful for the first time to become the 16th racket of the world, Daniel Medvedev, who managed to win three titles at once – in Sydney, Winston-Salem and Tokyo, where in the final the Russian beat out Kei Nishikori, one of the strongest tennis players in the world. Having such grenadiers as Khachanov and Medvedev – two players from the world twenty, as well as Andrei Rublev, who recently got rid of the injury and at the end of the season, having achieved a decent result, taking third place in the Next Gen ATP Finals tournament, together with experienced Evgeny Donskoy and Eugene Karlovsky – our team may well claim the championship title in the “Davis Cup”. A number of important victories were also won by our juniors in various age categories. In the spring at the European Cup among 16-year-olds, held in Kazan, the Russian team won the main trophy. Our girls – Oksana Selekhmetyeva, Elina Avanesyan and Alina Charayeva (captain – Oksana Mishukova) with a dry score of 3: 0 in the title match took over the peers from Belarus and returned to Russia the European Cup in this age category. In the summer, the girls’ team of Russia (Diana Schneider, Nadezhda Khalturina, Alyona Kasatkina, captain Alexander Krasnorutsky) took second place in the summer youth team European Cup in the under-14 category, which ended in San Remo (Italy). Then the same team of girls became the champion of the tournament in the category up to 14 years of ITF World Junior Tennis Finals, which was held in the Czech city of Prostejov. This is the first victory of the representatives of our country in these competitions since 2015. Successfully played Russian juniors and in individual competitions. So, Erica Andreeva won the title at one of the oldest and most representative TE tournaments of the first category in the age group up to 14 years, Torneo Avvenire, and Konstantin Zhzhenov became the champion in the category U14 among juniors at the prestigious international junior junior tournament Junior Masters, which ended in October in Reggio Calabria (Italy). It is impossible not to recall the achievements achieved by our wheelchair tennis players – in 2018, the Russian team won the BNP Paribas World Team Cup Youth Team World Championship (Sergey Lysov, Leonid Gubanov, Vadim Obukhov, captains Olga Murina and Serik Muldagaliev). All players were awarded the national tennis prize “Russian Cup” in the nomination “Team of the Year.” We also managed to advance to the forefront of beach tennis. For the first time in the history of this sports discipline, the world ranking was headed by the Russian athlete – the 29-year-old leader of our team, Nikita Burmakin, in the Top 30 of the world ranking are Russians Ivan Syrov (27th) and Sergey Kuptsov (28th). In women, just six Russian women are in the top thirty of the world, and the highest places are occupied by Irina Glimakova (14), Daria Churakova (15) and Ekaterina Kamenetskaya (20). In short, the current generation of Russian tennis players worthily continues the glorious traditions of their predecessors, which allows Russia to continue to occupy a worthy place among the world’s leading tennis powers, and this means that, as always, we are simply doomed to success. Good luck to you all and new bright victories! “- quotes Tarpishchev’s press service of the FTR.
