On July 2, the most anticipated and most prestigious of all tennis tournaments – Wimbledon – started on the grassy courts of cozy London. The oldest two-week tennis championship, which takes place every year at the end of June and the beginning of July on the basis of the All-England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in London, this year was presented straight by six Ukrainian sportsmen at the start. What are the chances for our tennis players to manifest themselves in the third season of the Grand Slam championship (after the Australian Open and Roland Garros)? How did we start? And in general – what amaze and disappoint in Ukrainian tennis players for the last years?
Ukrainian tennis is gradually gaining more and more supporters in our country. Certainly, it is not so popular among the sport fans, like other top sports – football, boxing, biathlon, basketball or athletics. But, judging by the rating of search queries of Ukrainians on the Internet, it is in the top ten most popular. “Peak” of interest, of course, is during the Grand Slam tournaments – the four largest annual tournaments in modern tennis. The ratings of top Ukrainian tennis players in social networks also show how love is constantly growing with new victories and is naturally disappearing with defeats. For example, the number one tennis player of Ukraine Elina Svitolina today on Instagram has more than 302 000 followers.
Elina Svitolina
Meet the Ukrainian tennis players!
According to the rating of the Federation of Ukrainian tennis, Oleksandr Dolgopolov always takes the first place among the men. However, the number one tennis players in our country is at the 62nd place in the world rating of the APR. Serhii Stakhovsky, who is at the second place in Ukraine, only 109th at the world one. But the number three tennis player of Ukraine Illya Marchenko, in general, is almost closing the third hundredth world scale of the strongest players – 296th position.
The corresponding statistics, of course, indicates the result. Ukrainian fans really miss the powerful game of our men. Top-5 tennis players of Ukraine have not shown cool matches in the Tournament Top List for a relatively long time. So long ago that the fans seemed to have reconciled – our beautiful women are the ones in world tennis who bring victories to the country. A titan of tennis Elina Svitolina, young star Marta Kostyuk, spectacular Lesya Tsurenko, uncompromising Kateryna Bondarenko… These surnames are famous. And not only among the Ukrainian fans. With respect to men, every major victory – is perceived as success… with an element of luck.
For example, Illya Marchenko did not even manage to reach the main draws of the Wimbledon tennis-2018. The Ukrainian conceded in three sets in the first round of qualification. Following him, another Ukrainian tennis star Denys Molchanov lost in the final of the qualifying round. Thus, only two of our men were left in the prestigious championship – Oleksandr Dolgopolov and Serhii Stakhovsky. But in fact, only one. After all, the Ukrainian Dolgopolov decided to withdraw from the championship a few days before the start of Wimbledon. Instead, Simone Bollelli from Italy will compete. And this is not the worst news – as the athlete himself said – it is still unknown if he will be able to continue his career at all. The last time Oleksandr Dolgopolov played on May 14 at a tournament in Rome, where he lost to Novak Djokovic. Last year, Sasha completed the performances in the first round, not finishing the match against the already legendary Roger Federer because of the injury.
Serhii Stakhovsky
Now the Ukrainians are left to support only one of our athletes among men at Wimbledon – Serhii Stakhovsky. On July 2, he scored an important, but physically exhausting victory in the first round of the Grand Slam tournament in London. The Ukrainian defeated the Portuguese Joao Sousa in six sets – 6:3, 6:5, 5:7, 1:6, 6:4. In the next match Stakhovsky will meet 11th in the tournament, American Sam Querrey.
FIRST SENSATION
As soon as Wimbledon started, the first sensation immediately thundered to the whole world. Even though it did not bring anything good for the Ukrainian tennis. The number-one tennis player of Ukraine Elina Svitolina lost to the fifty-seventh number of the world rating. Svitolina (5th number of the world rating WTA) unexpectedly lost to Tatjana Maria (Germany, 57th) at the start of the Wimbledon championship. Elina, whom sports reviewers and bookmakers predicted victory in the tournament, and who started the season very well, lost in six sets – 6:7 (3: 7), 6:4, 1:6 – and left the championship. Sport is a sport – the strongest win here not by the rating of the weekly update, but by physical and psychological readiness here and now – on the court.
Another hope of Ukrainian women’s tennis, Kateryna Bondarenko, also could not stand the test of the first round. 79th tennis player in the WTA rating lost to Lucie Safarova (66th, Czech Republic) – 4:6, 4:6 – also dropped out of the tournament. Consequently, there was only one representative of Ukrainian tennis at Wimbledon – Lesya Tsurenko. The 34th rating number of the WTA confidently beat the Hungarian Timea Babosh (38th). The result of the game, which lasted for 1 hour 14 minutes – 7:5, 6:2. The next game Lesya will take against the Czech Barbora Strycova (23rd position).
Despite the disappointment from the performances of our athletes at Wimbledon-2018, Ukrainian tennis is gradually gaining momentum, and our tennis players, regardless of their current ratings, are respected by fans from around the world and are feared by rivals. The school of Ukrainian tennis gives the first results. This is evidenced by fantastic performances and victories of Elina Svitolina, who in early September 2017, set an absolute for Ukraine record – took the third place in singles in the international ranking of the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA). Such a high position the Ukrainians did not occupy either in women’s or men’s tennis. They continue to predict victory for Svitolina, who recently lives in London. Who knows, maybe in the near future, she will return the third place of world fame to herself. The main thing is to survive psychologically.
Lesya Tsurenko
It is incredibly interesting to observe the professional growth and success of Lesya Tsurenko and Kateryna Bondarenko. And young hope Marta Kostyuk, who at the beginning of 2018 at the age of 15, passed the qualification in the adult part of the Australian Open – became the youngest tennis player, qualified in the main draw of any Grand Slam championship since 2005. There is also a hope for men. 17-year-old Pavlo Shumeiko pleases with his success. He won two titles this season (Senets and Cherkasy) and became the best representative of Ukraine in the ITF rating. Shumeiko rose to the 46th place. The second Ukrainian in the top 100 is the 17-year-old Oleksii Krutykh – 83rd position.
Notwithstanding the temporary difficulties, the main achievements of Ukrainian tennis are yet to come. So, we are patient and pin all our hopes on the Ukrainian players.
Text: Vadym Lubchak
