Petrova comments on the Russian Tennis Federation

Her comments were generally not positive:

Russian tennis player Nadia Petrova has blamed the Russian tennis authorities for not contributing to the success of Russian players.

“The Russian tennis authorities can’t claim any credit for the success many of the players are having on the professional circuit these days,” Petrova was quoted by AFP as saying. “All they do is talk and their contribution doesn’t go beyond mere words.”

She added that if at all anyone could claim credit for the rise of players like Maria Sharapova, Anastasia Myskina, Svetlana Kuznetsova and herself, it was their parents. “Our parents made great sacrifices and that is the main reason why many of the Russians are at the top today,” Petrova said.

In her opinion, the Soviet Union took better care of their athletes. “Now I keep hearing from younger Russians all the time that they are facing severe financial problems. Before Perestroika, athletes didn’t have to worry about training expenses, but now the federation has no money and they can do very little to help,” Petrova said.

She added that the competition between the players had brought to disconnection. “We often stay in the same hotels during tournaments but sometimes I get the feeling that there’s no connection at all. I guess you can blame it on the generation. We just talk to one another casually but we never have dinners or go shopping together. I guess because we are competing against one another so fiercely it’s difficult to get close to one another. I would like all of us to be friends, it would be very exciting but I don’t know how that’s going to happen,” Petrova said.