Shamil Tarpishchev says he has had visa problems going on for the past decade.
Photo: Dmitry Azarov
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Russian Fed Cup Teams Leaves for US without Captain
Russia’s tennis chief Shamil Tarpishchev said Monday that a delay in his U.S. visa had left the women’s national team in the United States without a coach ahead of a Fed Cup semi-final next week.
Shamil Tarpishchev, president of the Russian Tennis Association and coach for the men’s and women’s nation teams, said he had handed in his papers to the embassy late May, hoping to receive a visa in one month.
Mr. Tarpishchev, who is also a member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), said he had been hoping to fly to the United States from Guatemala where the IOC chose Sochi last week to host the 2014 Winter Olympics. Instead, he head to fly back to Moscow and wait for the visa. “If I get the visa, I will have to make the trip across the Atlantic again,” Mr. Tarpishchev told Kommersant.
The Russian tennis chief said he thought he might be on some sort of black list in the U.S. embassy. A spokesperson for the U.S. in Moscow confirmed reports that Mr. Tarpishchev’s application was being processed by U.S. authorities in Washington.
Shamil Tarpishchev has had visa problems going on for the past decade. In 1996, he got a restricted visa for the Atlanta Olympics that said he couldn’t leave the city. Six years later, the Davis Cup winning coach had more problems. “I went for an interview to the embassy where they showed me paper clippings of 1996 which said I had links to some metallurgy companies that I was lobbying,” Mr. Tarpishchev told Kommersant. A visa delay scrapped his plans to go to an IOC session in Salt Lake City.
Mr. Tarpishchev said the holdup could cost his country’s Fed Cup win in its July 14-15 semifinal match tie with the United States in Stowe, Vermont.
Earlier, Russia’s two top players Maria Sharapova and Svetalana Kuznetsova pulled out of the match because of injuries. Russia is going to Vermont with world top 10 players Nadia Petrova and Anna Chakvetadze along with Elena Vesnina and Alla Kudryavtseva.
Venus and her sister, Wimbledon four time winner Serena Williams, will lead the U.S. team along with Lisa Raymond and Vania King.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of July 10, 2007
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