Russia’s two best singles players have booked their spots on the 2008 Russian Olympic team.
Shamil Tarpischev, head of the Russian Tennis Federation, has announced that Svetlana Kuznetsova and Maria Sharapova have been given two of the country’s four singles berths.
“We can send four single players and two doubles to Beijing,” said Tarpischev in comments published by Fox Sports Australia.
“Sharapova and Kuznetsova will definitely play in the women’s tournament, while the other girls will fight it out for the two remaining places.”
The “fight” for the remaining singles spots will be close because Russians Anna Chakvetadze, Elena Dementieva, Vera Zvonareva, Dinara Safina, and Nadia Petrova are all currently ranked inside the Top 20.
Tarpischev is still completing the doubles roster, but plans to announce his final team selections in the early part of June.
“We will announce our final line-ups just before the deadline on June 8,” added Tarpischev.
Elena Vesnina and Ana Chakvetadze will probably get the last two.
Either case, whoever get left over will be ****** because Sharapova only played one Fed Cup for Russia.
I don’t know, Nick.
Vesnina has been supporting Fed Cup, but she is not a top level singles player. Tarpischev wants to reward his players, but he also wants to bring home the gold.
Chakvetadze has a good shot, especially if she can hang onto her top 10 ranking. Personally, I’d like to see Dementieva get the nod to play in Beijing. Out of all the remaining top players from Russia, she’s probably the best and most confident in singles.
They would obviously pick Sharapova, but based on how many Fed Cup players have played, Vesnina would be ****** since she has played a lot for Russia but end up being left out because she’s not a Gold contender.
Like Henin, she hasn’t played for Fed Cup in almost a year, which the rule says you MUST in order to be on the Olympics team, but she will be pick for Belgium because they only have her for the Gold medal.
It’s unfair but sadly no other choices if you want to win the Gold.
I think the last two spots will be chosen from among Chakvetadze, Dementieva, and Zvonareva. Petrova and Safina are really good doubles players and they’ll probably be two of the four doubles players going (perhaps paired with Kuznetsova and Vesnina, respectively). Chakvetadze is shaky mentally and Dementieva is coming back strong this year.
I really believe Zvonareva will make it onto the team. Two arguments against her: weak mentally and lower-ranked over Anna and Elena. First, she’s gotten a lot stronger mentally and has done with against top players this year, showing great belief. Second, she is only ranked below them now. Remember she has zero points to defend between now and the U.S. Open. If she schedules wisely, and plays half as well as she has been, she’ll be in the top ten for sure. Right now in the race to the championships she sits at #5 through 3 1/2 months of play.
Remeber that the deadline is on June 8, so zvonareva has only probably three tournaments to climb up the rankings, i know shell play in rome, prague, and roland garros, so chakvetadze and dementieva are probably going to be in the olympics, because dementieva and chakvetadze don’t have that many points to defend. Chakvetadzes points to defend are really only rgarros with 250, and dementieva has only istanbul, roland garros, and rome which is about 340, so unless dementieva loses in the first round of all of those, i don’t see zvonareva making it.
[...] announced last month that Svetlana Kuznetsova and Maria Sharapova would also represent Russia in [...]