Maria Sharapova made her debut for the national team this weekend winning two single matches to help Russia to Fed Cup semifinals.
Photo: AP, AP
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Russia Cruises into Fed Cup Semis
Russia has reached Fed Cup semifinals after a 4-1 win over Israel this weekend. Maria Sharapova made her debut for the national team winning two single matches. In the decisive rubber, Anna Chakvetadze beat Tzipora Obziler.
Soccer and basketball players know very well how passionately Israeli fans cheer for their teams. Compared to the Israeli crowd even such paragons of hooliganism as English soccer fans look reserved. Probably it is only in Greece and Turkey that you can see this sort of madness that reign over Israeli grounds and pitches. But what is good for soccer and basketball is not very suitable for tennis where the crowd is expected to follow some rules. Fans are now allowed to shout during the points, when a player is serving or shout “out” to put a player at a loss. But this is exactly what the Israeli torsida was doing the whole Fed Cup weekend.
You can understand why Israeli fans were doing it. Obviously the Israelis did not have much chance to overcome the team which has taken three Fed Cup titles in the past four years. The only way for the Israeli squad to win was to unnerve Shamil Tarpishchev’s players. And fans helped them with that at the start. It is still a mystery how Dinara Safina managed to lose to Shahar Peer in the opener. In the first set Safina was having her opponent running around the court and did not let her take a game. But something broke down. The crowd tried to put some pressure on Safina and when they saw that it works they went on. The Russian player did not manage to overcome anxiety and let the second and the first sets slip.
The lucky start encouraged Israeli fans to put up a real trial for Maria Sharapova who was playing Tzipora Obziler in the second match of the day. The audience would wail every time the Russian was touching the ball. It looked as if they were wailing non-stop. Finally, the referee had to request Israeli team coach Oded Jacob to calm their fans down. His appeal did not help much but Sharapova is one of the strongest players because she can resist pressure. She calmly led the match to beat Obziler. On Sunday, she crushed Shahar Peer doing the best she could to bring Russia two points of out three needed for a win. “The way the crowd was behaving was even calming me down,” Sharapova said after the match which crowd. “In a way I felt she [Peer] was telling me ‘I need their help, I can’t do it on my own’. I felt I’m going to take my chances and I’m going to win this match.”
Shamil Tarpishchev asked Anna Chakvetadze to stand in for Safina to win the decisive point for Russia. The reserve singles against Tzipora Obziler showed that Chakvetadze would have been much better off in the first singles match than Safina. Chakvetadze, however, started by losing three games in a row. She said after the match that she went out play without any proper warm-up, so she had to take some time to get into the play. Once she was ready, Chakvetadze won four consecutive games. Her opponent tried to keep afloat somehow but it is hard when you are 34 and the person on the other side of the court is a 21-year old top 10 player. Fans, however, did not help Obziler. They did their job all right chanting and tapping but instead of suppressing Chakvetadze they got quite the opposite. The Russian got excited by that. After each good point she would turn to Israeli fans and shout: “Come on!” as if she was challenging the crowd. As a result, the fans got quieter and Chakvetadze won the match helping Russia to a 3-1 win. The doubles rubber did not matter much after that.
“When the crowd started being so aggressive, I started to play as best as could,” Chakvetadze said. “I was a little nervous because the crowd was against me, but I thought to myself, 'I will die on this court. I have to win. I have to prove that I can win'. I expected pressure from fans but I didn’t think it would be so strong. There is no respect to the other player here. I’m sorry that the people don’t know how to behave. It’s not soccer – it’s tennis.”
Russia will now meet the USA-Germany victor in the semifinals on April 26 and 27 in Moscow. In another semifinal, China will take on Spain. The Spaniards eliminated 2006 and 2007 Fed Cup finalists Italy while the Chinese beat France to make it to the nation’s first ever Fed Cup semifinal.
Afsati Dzhusoiti
All the Article in Russian as of Feb. 04, 2008
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