Tennis: Kournikova - from Russia with love

Laid low by injuries and at 20- years- old still no nearer to claiming that elusive first WTA Tour title, it may be that Anna Kournikova’s legacy to the game which has made her a multi-millionaire lies in the next generation of Russian stars.

That those stars have begun to surface in recent years three other Russian women currently inhabit the world’s top 50 is largely down to the immense profile Kournikova has nurtured for herself across the world.

Inspired by that stature and not least by a bank balance which leaves those of far more talented tennis players in the shade, Russian mothers and fathers are beginning to instill the driving ambition into their offspring to fight their way to fame and fortune.

This year the rigorous Moscow tennis school programme enhanced to cope with the rising demand is beginning to pay off spectacularly.

Kournikova is increasingly looking backwards over those suntanned shoulders around which hangs that albatross of never having won a major trophy.

The Russian Revolution has arrived in women’s tennis. Moscow teenager Elena Dementieva arrived as a notable Grand Slam contender at Flushing Meadow last year when she reached the semi-final of the US Open and gatecrashed the world’s top 10 pushing Kournikova for the national number one slot.

Dementieva, now 19, followed up this year with one final and one semi-final place on the tour along with an exciting run to the third round of the Australian Open.

But the one really worth Kournikova and the tennis world ought to be keeping an eye on is the 17-year-old prodigy Lina Krasnoroutskaya.

Having lost in the first round of her five previous Grand Slam attempts, Krasnoroutskaya will go to Wimbledon on the back of an extraordinary run through qualification to the quarter-finals at the French Open.

The girl from Obninsk is in little doubt that her spectacular rise through the ranks is due in part to the feelgood factor in Russian tennis created by the success of Kournikova, and last year’s US Open Grand Slam in the men’s game by Marat Safin.

Krasnoroutskaya said: ‘‘We’ve got a really good school of tennis in Russia now because the kids see Kournikova and Marat and want to be like them.

‘‘We have some very good coaches, especially for the small kids. I started to play at the age of six and I have always gone to practice every day.

‘‘It is that discipline which is why there are so many talented young players coming up. We have some special kids in Europe.’’

Whether the Russian contingent can impress on Wimbledon’s lush lawns is open to question Krasnoroutskaya has had little experience of grass but from what she has learnt she insists it will suit her energetic game.

Little can be expected of Kournikova, save the screaming grandstands, the overflowing photographer pits and the sullen blue-eyed glares, in a season which has seen her sidelined through injury.

Perhaps the Russians will seek success through Elena Likhovtseva, another member of the top 50 who briefly performed the unthinkable and actually surpassed Kournikova in the rankings in 1998.

Likhovtseva last year pushed defending champion and eventual runner-up Lindsay Davenport to the brink, holding a two-break lead in the final set on number one court after playing some inspired serve-and-volley tennis before eventually folding to the American’s power.

Think of the embarrassment for women’s tennis’ highest wage earner if one of her compatriots beat her to a title and a Grand Slam one at that.

You are not left with the impression that Florida-based Anna would be first on the phone offering hearty congratulations.

‘‘I am close friends with Dementieva but I do not consider Anna a friend,’’ Krasnoroutskaya added. ‘‘We say hi to each other if we walk past, but not in a friends way.’’

But Kournikova for her part insists that the day will still come when she backs up her hefty bank balance with a few trophies.

‘‘I will win Grand Slams,’’ she insists. ‘‘You can never say if it’s going to happen tomorrow, in one year or five years. But I know I am a good player and if I keep improving my game will come together and everything will be fine.’’