As you know, in Russia only two men's competitions of the ATP series take place annually - in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Moreover, in terms of their status and prize pool, they are almost equivalent and, of course, compete for the informal title of the best tournament in the country. This year, the St. Petersburg Open tournament objectively by the composition of the participants was noticeably stronger than the Kremlin Cup. In addition to the first racket of Russia Nikolai Davydenko, such prominent personalities in tennis as the Spaniard Tommy Robredo, German Tommy Haas and Anchich arrived in the northern capital. However, Safin, who reached the final at the Kremlin Cup, did not appear in Petersburg. The most charismatic tennis player of the country explained the reasons for his refusal in advance - back in mid-October during a tournament in Moscow at one of the press conferences. "I was offered such a sum of" starting ", for which I can’t get up from a chair either," the witty Marat painfully pricked the organizers. In response, the director of St. Petersburg Open Mikhail Rydnik told the press that Safin was offered a "six-figure sum" for coming to the banks of the Neva. Naturally, not in rubles.
Even in the absence of the wayward Marat (by the way, he went to Lyon last week, where he took off in the first round), the final of the St. Petersburg tournament could well have turned out to be Russian. It didn’t work out. Black for our tennis players was Wednesday evening. During a doubles game, Mikhail Yuzhny, a favorite of the public, suffered a serious ankle injury (Misha left the city in a cast in a cast, and now it’s not a fact that he will have time to fully recover by the December Davis Cup final in Moscow), a little later, citing pain in the ankle of his right leg , the main favorite, Davydenko, refused to continue the fight. And after that, the usually diplomatic Nikolai completely torn Gerflor's cover, where the tournament was held: “In my opinion, playing on such a cover like here is simply dangerous. It’s very easy to get an ankle injury on Gerflor, so you need to change it” . By the way, the famous Finnish tennis player Jarkko Nieminen could not finish his match, but the court seemed to have nothing to do with it - his cut on his leg was inflamed.
Be that as it may, in the absence of the best tennis players in Russia (Dmitry Tursunov lost in the first round), he tried to defend the hopes of a patriotic audience alone ... Igor Kunitsyn, who is not even in the top hundred of the rating. Recall: in Moscow, Igor twice reached the semifinals, but still remained in the shadow of more successful and hyped compatriots. And here Kunitsyn "bathed" in the limelight. And I must say, he coped with the pressure - knocked out of the Haas tournament, reached the semifinals, where he lost to Johansson not without a fight. Moreover, the "malicious" coating prevented him. “My feet hurt terribly and my heels are falling off, but in my native country I am ready to play through pain too” - such statements clearly added popularity to the courageous native of Vladivostok. An even greater sensation was the entry into the semifinals of the 18-year-old Latvian Ernest Gulbis. The boy did not hide the fact that he got a place in the main draw of the tournament thanks to his father's connections with the organizers. However, his debut at the ATP tournament turned out to be simply enchanting. So the famous child prodigy coach Nicky Pilic (the only person who led to the victory in the Davis Cup two teams - Germany and Croatia), probably, not for nothing compared the level of talent compared young Ernest with his beloved student Goran Ivanishevich.
"NEWS"