Natasha was amazing to watch - could do every shot you can think of and several you can't. Always very entertaining to watch, always enjoying tennis. Here's an article which I think sums her up rather well:
Not a singles regret
by Joel Drucker
Natasha Zvereva knows she could have been a singles champion. But with<br /> millions in the bank from a Hall-of-Fame doubles career, she has no<br /> reason to look back.
Every morning when Natasha Zvereva wakes up, she asks herself one<br /> question: 'What is today?'
If she's in Newport Beach, Calif., the upscale seaside community where she<br /> lives when on leave from the WTA Tour, her day might include one or more<br /> of the following: dipping into a collection of short stories by fellow Russian<br /> emigre Vladimir Nabokov; shopping at one of the many upscale boutiques<br /> in her town; hitting the dance floor with a passion she seldom displays on a<br /> tennis court; or hosting a gourmet dinner for half a dozen friends. Following<br /> a three-week run of California tournaments this summer, for instance,<br /> Zvereva concocted a feast of osso bucco, asparagus tips, criss-cross fried<br /> potatoes and an exceptionally buttery fruit tart.
Oh, yes, also on the agenda: Hitting tennis balls for an hour with fellow<br /> Newport Beach resident Kevin Forbes, who was ranked in Southern<br /> California as a junior, or former roommate and current doubles partner<br /> Lindsay Davenport. We're not talking a 60-minute Jimmy Connors workout,<br /> where it's combat to the death by the fourth ball. Rather, Zvereva's<br /> practices are nice, friendly hits that usually lack the intensity of one of<br /> Zvereva's typical trips to the supermarket. And don't even ask about the<br /> gym or the track, today or any other day.
Subtract t he home-cooked meal, throw in a couple of matches and you've<br /> got a good picture of Zvereva's life on the road, too. Sometimes, such as at<br /> the final of the Bank of the West Classic at Stanford this past July, she will<br /> step onto the court to play a doubles match without having struck a single<br /> warm-up ball. That day, she hid behind sunglasses and, aside from her<br /> usual pigtails, wore a distracted, almost fatigued, look. Yet once the match<br /> began, she brightened considerably, mixing laughter with play as<br /> consistent and creative as virtually any doubles player's in tennis history.<br /> Roughly an hour later, she and Davenport, the top seeds, had beaten<br /> Larisa Neiland and Elena Tatarkova in straight sets.
For Davenport, the victory completed a daily double; she had won the<br /> singles crown earlier in the afternoon. But Zvereva, in a pattern that typifies<br /> her career, dominated in doubles while failing to advance to the final<br /> weekend on her own.
Her Hall-of-Fame-caliber resume features more than 70 doubles titles,<br /> including 20 Grand Slam crowns. Singles is another story. Though Zvereva<br /> climbed to No. 5 by age 18, she has earned only three solo tournament<br /> victories, and her lone Grand Slam final appearance, a crushing<br /> straight-set loss to Steffi Graf at the French Open, was back in 1988.<br /> Zvereva, in fact, has earned the most prize money ($6.6 million) of any<br /> woman never to have won a major singles title.
'I don't know why, but doubles just comes to me,' she says. 'It always has.<br /> It's just too easy. I can get away with more things, my serve is less of a<br /> liability and I only have to cover half a court.'
For a fleeting moment this summer, Zvereva raised the hopes of her many<br /> fans that she might make a run at the singles glory many had forecast for<br /> her as a teenager.
It happened on grass, the surface that best suits her smorgasbord of<br /> speeds, spins, angles and volleys -- and her short attention span. First, at<br /> Eastbourne, she sliced and diced Venus Williams en route to a 6-2, 6-1 win<br /> in the second round.
That was just a warm-up -- literally -- to her Wimbledon performance, where,<br /> in the third round, she defeated Steffi Graf for the first time in 19 meetings.<br /> During the course of that 6-4, 7-5 triumph, Zvereva converted 78 percent of<br /> her first serves, cleverly directed balls to Graf's weaker backhand wing and<br /> used a deft assortment of drop shots and daring net forays.
Five days later Zvereva straight-setted Monica Seles, covering the court<br /> with uncommon grace and using her varied shot arsenal to render<br /> ineffective Seles's double-fisted bashes. It was just the second time ever<br /> that one player had beaten Graf and Seles at the same event. Though<br /> Zvereva subsequently lost a three-set semifinal to Nathalie Tauziat, her<br /> All-England performance boosted her singles ranking from No. 22 to No.<br /> 15.
But it turns out her success, rather than emblematic of a renewed<br /> commitment to singles, was an anomaly.
Her singles goals remain modest, if not also curious: 'I would like to be in<br /> the Top 10, but just barely,' she says, lowering her voice and slowing down<br /> her words.'I would be really happy to be No. 8 to 10, though I wouldn't<br /> complain at No. 7. I'm coming from the point of view that I can get there on<br /> my natural ability alone.'
'I'm very lazy,' she continues. 'I'm not going to commit myself to hard work.'
Sitting in the player's lounge at Stanford, still sweating from an early-round<br /> singles victory, Zvereva addresses the chasm between her singles and<br /> doubles records. 'It's not that singles doesn't matter,' she says. 'People<br /> make a mistake. They think doubles is what I always wanted to do. That's<br /> not true. Singles was always No. 1.'
Indeed, Zvereva seemed a good bet to eclipse the solo achievements of<br /> Russia's previous best woman player, Olga Morozova, a Top 10 player<br /> during the 1970s and Wimbledon finalist in '74. Zvereva used her versatile<br /> all-court game to win three legs of the junior Grand Slam in 1987. A year<br /> later, as a 17-year-old rookie pro, she defeated Martina Navratilova at the<br /> French Open and, two rounds later, found herself in the final.
'We're talking talent like a John McEnroe or a Martina Hingis,' says<br /> Morozova, a former Russian national team coach who now works for the<br /> British Lawn Tennis Association. 'She could do anything with the ball.'
But after falling victim to both jitters and an overpowering Graf 6-0, 6-0 in 32<br /> minutes (record time for a Grand Slam final) -- a match she claims not to<br /> remember at all -- Zvereva slowly regressed in singles. She has cracked<br /> the Top 10 only once since 1988 and plummeted as low as No. 57 in early<br /> 1997 following an indifferent, injury-plagued 1996.
Part of the problem is that despite her respectable size (5-foot-8, 138<br /> pounds), Zvereva has never developed a big weapon. As a result, she<br /> must grind out matches, something her mind simply won't will her to do. 'I<br /> would like a little more power,' she says, squinting, laughing and holding<br /> her thumb and index finger an inch apart. 'I can't just hit the first or second<br /> ball for a winner. I have to confuse people, which means I always have to<br /> counterpunch. Sometimes it's very frustrating.'
But there's more to it than that. While Zvereva claims to care about singles<br /> results, her actions indicate otherwise: She hasn't had a coach since 1990.<br /> She has done nothing to improve her suspect speed by means of sprint<br /> and drill work. And she admits to losing her concentration during lengthy<br /> singles matches.
'We thought if we crossed the border, life would be easy, that it would<br /> always be sunny and fun,' Morozova says, speaking of both her own career<br /> and Zvereva's. 'But then Natasha saw that it would take even more, and<br /> she wasn't willing to work as hard as she had when she was younger.'
Zvereva agrees with that assessment. 'I have pretty much been coasting,'<br /> she says, without a hint of remorse. 'Putting in more time on the court only<br /> bores me. It doesn't make me better. I start to expect things of myself. I don't<br /> think I can handle it mentally.'
This 'slacker' approach is in large measure a reaction to her<br /> micro-managed youth in the former Soviet Union. Her parents, Marat<br /> Zverev and Nina Zvereva, were both tennis instructors. Early on, Marat, who<br /> coached at the Soviet Army Club, decided that tennis would be his<br /> daughter's passport to freedom. Starting at age 7, Natalia (the name given<br /> to Zvereva by her parents, rather than the name she legally changed it to in<br /> 1994) was pushed toward greatness.
'It was a very hard working environment, hour after hour of tennis and drilling<br /> and matches,' she says, her unblinking brown eyes displaying the<br /> weariness of a gulag survivor.
Zvereva began fighting for her independence from what she terms a<br /> 'repressed' lifestyle at age 18. First, with the encouragement of her father,<br /> she took on the Soviet Sports Committee, which kept the bulk of her 1988<br /> prize money ($361,354), reportedly granting her a mere $1,000 weekly<br /> allowance. In April 1989, following her loss in the final of the Family Circle<br /> Magazine Cup at Hilton Head Island, S.C., Zvereva told a national<br /> television audience that she'd like to keep every nickel of her prize money.
With the Cold War thawing, Soviet authorities could ill afford the public<br /> relations debacle of a star athlete like Zvereva defecting. In the end, she<br /> was allowed to keep both her winnings and her nationality (which, following<br /> the breakup of the USSR into separate nations in 1991, became -- and<br /> remains -- Belarussian).
Then, in 1990, Zvereva declared her freedom from her father by relieving<br /> him of his coaching responsibilities, opting to travel on tour by herself. 'It<br /> was painful for both of us at first,' she says.
Zvereva remains close with her mother (she visits her family in Minsk,<br /> Belarus, four times a year), but she and her father have grown apart in<br /> recent years. 'His life is tennis, tennis, tennis, and that's not me,' she says.
Though Zvereva's lack of motivation has proved a fatal flaw in singles, it<br /> hasn't prevented her from becoming one of the premier doubles players of<br /> this era. Her remarkable reflexes help her finish off points quickly; her sharp<br /> angles enable her to take full advantage of the alleys; and her desire<br /> seems to rise a notch when she's part of a team.
'When others are counting on her, Natasha will never let them down,' says<br /> Morozova.
Adds Davenport, 'She's just the best doubles partner, so supportive,<br /> friendly, fun and smart.'
Before pairing up with Davenport this year, Zvereva won Grand Slam<br /> doubles titles with four other women. She and fellow Russian Neiland (nee<br /> Savchenko) teamed to win the 1989 French Open and 1991 Wimbledon<br /> doubles titles. When the duo parted on friendly terms soon after winning the<br /> latter crown, Zvereva joined with Pam Shriver to win the '91 U.S. Open. But it<br /> was in 1992, when she teamed with Fernandez, that Zvereva found her<br /> perfect doubles partner.
While most legendary duos -- Billie Jean King-Rosie Casals,<br /> Navratilova-Shriver -- were built on the foundation of one great singles<br /> player and a less-gifted accomplice, Zvereva-Fernandez was comprised<br /> of two solo underachievers who ably filled in each other's missing pieces.<br /> Fernandez's clean attacking game, so flighty in singles, became rock-solid<br /> when wed to Zvereva's party-girl mix of chips and dips.
'Neither of them wanted it on their own,' says Dr. Julie Anthony, a former<br /> touring pro and close friend of Fernandez's. 'But they knew how to bring out<br /> the best in each other.'
And sometimes the worst: Their volatile personalities caused periodic<br /> conflicts on and off the court. According to Morozova, 'Gigi wasn't such a<br /> great influence on Natasha -- she could be so tempermental.'
Zvereva and Fernandez attempted a trial separation in early 1997, during<br /> which time Zvereva won the Australian Open doubles title paired with<br /> Martina Hingis. Later that spring, Zvereva and Fernandez decided to take<br /> one more lap around the track together. Their wins at Roland Garros and<br /> Wimbledon upped their Grand Slam victory total to 14 titles in six years.
Fernandez's retirement at year's end terminated their wildly successful<br /> partnership. Oddly, neither member of the duo likes talking about it today.<br /> Fernandez declined to be interviewed for this story. 'Gigi's enjoying her life<br /> away from tennis,' Zvereva explains.
Zvereva is perfunctory in her own analysis of the secret to their success:<br /> 'We had that chemistry.'
Curt answers such as that are representative of Zvereva's policy of not<br /> revealing her true feelings (or much else about her personal life) to<br /> anybody -- not even friends.
'I've never known anyone like her,' Davenport says. 'She's a neat person,<br /> but there are times when I wish I understood her more. She is so<br /> independent. She could go anywhere in the world and be totally<br /> comfortable being alone.'
Neiland describes Zvereva as 'a complex person, her own person.'
Anthony believes Zvereva is 'happier than Monica Seles or Steffi [Graf],'<br /> expressly because she isn't so driven. She adds, though, that 'Maybe when<br /> she gets older and looks back, she'll wonder if she cheated herself out of<br /> the chance to really lay it on the line and go after it.'
But Anthony may be overlooking one important quality about Zvereva: She<br /> has always been one to wake up in the morning and think about 'What is<br /> today?' rather than 'What could have been yesterday?'
'I don't think about the past,' Zvereva says. 'I live my life in the present,<br /> maybe with just a peek into the future.'
She pauses, then sums up the 'fun-first, singles-second' attitude that has<br /> characterized her career: 'You have to want it, and I don't. I'm not playing for<br /> anyone. I'm living my life the way I want.'
From the November 1998 issue of Tennis Magazine