OPENOVA.(Brief Article)

Publication: The New Yorker

Publication Date: 09-SEP-02

Bookmark this article Print this article Link to this article Email this article Digg It! Add to del.icio.us RSS

COPYRIGHT 2002 All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of The Condé Nast Publications Inc.

As the Williams sisters shot relentlessly toward titledom at the U.S. Open last week, the Russian competition spent their time, when not playing or practicing, in the players' lounge, eating yogurt and pizza. They were fast out of the gate in Round One: nine of them were winners.

The advancing Russians, almost all with two-handed backhands and hearty first serves, were Elena Dementieva, twenty; Vera Zvonareva, seventeen; Anastasia Myskina, twenty-one; Svetlana Kuznetsova, seventeen; Elena Bovina, nineteen; Elena Likhovtseva, twentysix; Tatiana Panova, twenty-six; Anna Smashnova, twenty-six (who is actually from Belarus); and Dinara Safina, sixteen, the latest of the "ovas," "evas," and "inas" to turn pro.

Safina is five...

Read the full article for free courtesy of your local library.