Are The Russians Overrated?

I suppose if you like your tennis in the fairytale
variety with born superstars becoming number 1
in their 1st year on tour and winning grans slams
every chance possible. You have to put it in perspective
there isn't going to be a Jennifer, Venus,Serena, Monica
or Hingis everyday of the new tour. The expections are
very high and for some people even winning the
Australian Open or being the new number 1 isn't good
enough.

I like the Russian players; and the don't see it as hype.
They're all already in the top 50 by sheer numbers.
It's not so much hype, as the USA media simply
stating a fact.

They're a bunch of talented and lazy women. They need to drop their mothers as coaches, not everybody is a Richard Williams, and hire real coaches that will make them do so serious work.

Watching Nadia(error prone and no control of shots, footwork) yesterday, and Safina (still has time to improve) and Elena(what happened?) today, it pains me to see so much wasted talent. It seems like they have no strategy out there. This is not going to cut it. Having good footwork will not help you if you can't hold your own serve comfortably. Elena could’ve taken that second from Jennifer. Having a good serve will not help if you can't get to a lot of balls.

Now a day, the balls are coming hard and fast. They need to get some advise from Kim and Justine. It's amazing that a small country like Belgium can produce 2 extraordinary tennis players while a massive country like Russia with so many players can't produce one top five player. Something is seriously wrong here.

Are these young ladies willing to put in the extra time and hard work it requires to make it to the top and win GL titles? I guess we'll see in the next couple of years. I really do hope so because it's a shame to see so much potential go to waste.

I think the most promising Russian is Vera. I have not seen much of Sharapova to comment about her.

we have dementieva, myskina, zvonareva, petrova, bovina, kuznetsova, lina k, safina and douchevina. they are the main prospects for russia.

dementieva, fix that serve and she will have top 5 potential, she's top 10/15 with her current serve so with a better serve top 5 is definately possible.

myskina i think has reached her potential personally i don't think she should be top 10 but the others who have better games aren't consistent enough so she is there for now but i don't think she can reach top 5.

zvonareva, i don't see her in the top 5, she doesn't have enough power, she will have to work really really hard to get there but i don't think she can do that year in and year out.

petrova, she can serve, volley and has powerful and consistent groundies. movement is sometimes a problem and consistency on her serve plus she isn't strong mentally against top players. if she can get her 1st serve % up and get more mentally tough i can see her reaching the top 5.

bovina, top 5 potential but to inconsistent and not quite mentally tough enough. if she can fix those things she may someday be in the top 5.

kuznetsova, she's pretty good but i don't see top 5 in her. maybe top 10 but i'm not even sure about that.

lina k i haven't seen play.

safina i thought last year she had top 10 potential and maybe top 5 potential but after seeing her play justine i just don't see it. i think she has more talent than a lot of the russians but some things will be hard to change like her service motion and those things will be her undoing because i don't think she'll be change them.

douchevina i've only seen once and she played poorly so i don't know but she has a good serve. i she has top 50 potential but it's to early to tell with her how much further she can go.

i know i've said a lot can reach top 50 and top 10 and i know we can only have 10 people in the top 10 and 5 people in the top 5 but i am comparing their potential to the way the current top 10 are playing. heaps of players have top 10 potential but only a small few of them actually fullfill that potential so that is why i say so many players have the potential, i'm not saying they'll all make it but the potential may be there.