Serbia 2 U.S. 0 Russia 0
Novak Djokovic and Ana Ivanovic made it a clean sweep for Serbia by winning the singles titles at the Pacific Life Open over American, Mardy Fish, and Russian, Svetlana Kuznetsova, respectively. It wasn’t that long ago that it seemed that the Russians were dominating professional tennis. Prior to that, it was the Americans with Serena and Venus Williams, Jennifer Capriati, Lindsay Davenport, Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi and before that the
Germans with Boris Becker and Steffi Graf, etc. Professional tennis is truly global and it seems that as the sport continues to grow in popularity, different countries will dominate for a couple years. Success and therefore the popularity of a sport seem to go in waves. At the same time, certain countries such as Russia, France, Spain and Argentina continue to have a lot of players in the main draws at the Grand Slams, but yet don’t always come home with the titles. Nonetheless, it is amazing that a small country such as Serbia which does not have a tennis history and has endured such turmoil recently, can spawn so many tennis sytars, i.e. Djokovic, Ivanovic, Jelena Jankvic, etc. Where will the next wave come from? I think it’s back to Eastern Europe… maybe Poland?
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