PETE ZIEBRON
The Federation of Tennis of the Republic of Kazakhstan celebrated its first ATP Champion today - Andrey Golubev, as well as a Wimbledon Ladies Doubles Championship from Yaroslava Shvedova earlier this month.
Andrey Golubev, Russian by birth who lives and trains in Italy and became a citizen of Kazakhstan 25 months ago, won the 2010 German Open Tennis Championships without dropping a set. The victory was the first in Golubev's career and he will earn 500 ATP points and 228K EURO for his accomplishment as he defeated 3rd seed and world #15 Jurgen Melzer 6-3 7-5 today in Hamburg. Golubev, who came into the tournament ranked #82, will enjoy a springboard up the ATP charts to #37 which will gain him direct entry into Masters 1000 competition.
The Hamburg tournament, which only a few years ago was a prestigious Masters 1000 event that preceded Roland Garros, was void of three of its seeds as #2 David Ferrer, #4 Gael Monfils and #14 Guillermo Garcia-Lopez all withdrew due to injury prior to the start of the tournament. This fact made little difference to Golubev who on his 23rd birthday on Thursday, defeated defending champion, top seed and world #6 Nikolay Davydenko in the 3rd round for his first victory against a Top 10 opponent. Goluvev then continued to steamroll the competition throughout the remainder of the week, culminating in triumph.
Golubev, along with Evgeny Korolev, who was the world #46 in February, and Mikhail Kukushkin are former Russian citizens who have recently acquired Kazakh passports as the Federation of Tennis of the Republic Kazakhstan seeks to gain entry into the World Group of Davis Cup competition as well as have representation at the Olympics going forward. Golubev's title was the first for Kazakhstan on the ATP Tour.
Meanwhile, Kazakhstan has also recruited three women to play under their flag on the WTA Tour as well as for Fed Cup and Olympic tennis competition, Bulgarian Sesil Karatantcheva and Russians Yaroslava Shvedova and Galina Voskoboeva. Karatantcheva achieved notoriety as a 15 year-old in 2005 when she defeated Venus Williams in the 3rd round at Roland Garros and advanced to the quarterfinals. Shvedova, the world #32, teamed with American Vania King to win the Wimbledon Ladies Doubles Championship earlier this month and she also reached the quarterfinals this year at Roland Garros.
Shvedova spends part of her year practicing in Kazakhstan because of the quality of the facilities there. When asked why she chooses to be in Kazakhstan and if the opportunity to play Fed Cup impacted her decision to shift allegiances, she replied: "Yeah, to play Fed Cup, to have opportunity (to play at the) Olympic Games. Like this it's because they're helping a lot. It was a good decision for me. I was thinking about (th)is before, but they came to me and I said straightaway yes."
In addition to future Fed Cup matches and the Olympic competition, Shvedova teamed with Golubev this January to represent Kazakhstan at the Hopman Cup in Perth, Australia a few weeks before the 2010 Australian Open. The Kazakh duo recorded impressive victories over Germany and Russia in round-robin play and only a narrow loss to Great Britain prevented them from advancing to the Hopman Cup Final.
Although Shvedova will need to wait until 2011 to compete again in the Fed Cup, Andrey Golubev will lead Kazakhstan in the Davis Cup World Group playoffs as Switzerland will visit the National Tennis Center in Astana, Kazakhstan on September 17-19.
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