Russian victory anomaly

The last week in the calendar of the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) before the start of the US Open in New York turned out to be very successful for Russian tennis players. Daria Kasatkina won the 250 category tournament with a prize fund of $250,000 in Canadian Granby, breaking the resistance of Australian Daria Saville in the final, and Lyudmila Samsonova won a similar competition in Cleveland, USA, leaving Belarusian Alexandra Sosnovich no chance. Thus, in August, Kasatkina and Samsonova won a total of four titles. Russians have not collected such a number of victories in WTA tournaments within one month for 12 years.

In order to objectively assess the significance of what happened on Saturday at the Granby and Cleveland tournaments, which ended with the victories of Daria Kasatkina and Lyudmila Samsonova two days before the start of the US Open in New York, two circumstances must be kept in mind. In terms of the level of participants, these competitions are not even included in the top twenty WTA competitions scheduled for this season, since especially prestigious tournaments are not held in principle before the start of the Grand Slam championships. At the same time, Kasatkina and Samsonova also won simultaneously in San Jose and Washington three weeks ago. That is, the number of titles won by Russians in one month has increased to four, which has not happened since February 2010 (see reference).

In addition, for comparison, we can recall that four tournaments were won by Russians over the entire last season – again through the efforts of Kasatkina and Samsonova, as well as Veronika Kudermetova. By the way, in 2020, Russia had only one title, won by Ekaterina Alexandrova, in 2019 – none at all, and now, starting from January, there are already six of them.

Daria Kasatkina, who recently returned to the top ten of the world classification, was seeded at the Championnats Banque Nationale de Granby tournament with the first number. And any loss to her would have come as a surprise, since the next highest ranked participant, Italian Jasmine Paolini, ranked only 52nd in it. As a result, it turned out that the starting three-set match with the Belgian Gret Minnen turned out to be the most difficult for the Russian woman. Although, emotionally, the final against the Australian Daria Saville, who at one time played for Russia under the maiden name of Gavrilov, turned out to be very difficult. The ending was indicative. Kasatkina led – 5:3, lost her serve, then after two double faults, Saville received two match points, which she failed to convert. Then there were several minutes of nervous, protracted draws, exhausting for both tennis players. Finally, Saville, exhausted by convulsions, gave away two goals, losing from the fifth match point – 4:6, 4:6. Kasatkina won her sixth title and returned to a career-high ranking of ninth.

Samsonova’s chances in Cleveland were quoted below. Including because the average level of the tournament participants was slightly higher than in Granby. However, the Russian has produced a brilliant five matches in which her victory looked inevitable almost from the very beginning. In any case, there was simply no intrigue in the final against Belarusian Alexandra Sosnovich. Samsonova won in about one hour – 6:1, 6:3. In total, she only gave up 18 games in the entire tournament, averaging less than four per match, which is a rare statistic. For Samsonova, apparently well accustomed to American hard, this is the third title in her career, and she has risen ten places in the ranking – from 45th to 35th.

Talking about the hopes associated with the success of the two Russians on the eve of the US Open, it is very tempting, but it does not make much sense. After all, there are no guarantees that events in New York will develop as successfully for them. It should not be forgotten that Samsonova, whose winning streak, taking into account the tournament in Washington, has been going on for ten matches, did not play at both of the largest August tournaments in Toronto and Cincinnati, where almost the entire elite played. Kasatkina suffered two defeats there – first from the Canadian Bianca Andreescu, and then from the American Amanda Anisimova, who significantly outnumbered her in aggressiveness.

Be that as it may, both tennis players, according to the tournament schedule, will have to start on Monday afternoon. Samsonova will meet with the Czech Sarah Beylek, who made her way to the main draw through qualifications, and Kasatkina will meet with the 88th racket of the world, British Darriet Hart. In the short term, Samsonova’s net, which was not included in the seeded list, looks more complicated. In case of a successful start, she will probably have to deal with last year’s US Open finalist, Canadian Leila Fernandez, already in the second round. In turn, Kasatkina in the third round “shines” a match with a very principled opponent – Russian Veronika Kudermetova.

Evgeny Fedyakov