In a wide-ranging interview with *RIA Novosti*, Russian Tennis Federation chief Shamil Tarpishchev (who is also the captain of Russia’s Davis Cup and Fed Cup teams) complains about the lack of financial support for tennis in Russia, which he says is the primary reason why so many players leave the country to train and live elsewhere. Last week, Russia lost to Brazil in Davis Cup, ensuring it will not be in the World Group in 2013. Russia has five players in the ATP Top 100, but only one in the Top 50, No. 25 Mikhail Youzhny.
“There are 18 tournaments including the Grand Slams and Miami,” Tarpishchev said. “And if you add team competitions, then it turns out that [pro] players spend 34-36 weeks at the international tournaments. Now let anybody sit and calculate how much it costs players. Unlike other sports, tennis players pay for themselves, because nobody finances them.Training up just one 16-year-old player costs $200,000 per year. And before he is 14, it’s $50,000 per year. Due to the lack of financing, 90 percent of tennis players either quit or start wandering around the world trying to achieve something and find money. It is profoundly wrong. Now 13-15 of our former players represent other countries. Why? They (those countries) pour decent amounts of money into it, there is a contract system—athlete, coach and plus federation, where responsibility for preparation exists. But we can’t guarantee anything, so we can’t sign a contract.”
Over the past six years, Russia has allowed some of its promising young players to play for Kazakhstan, including Mikhail Kukushkin, Andrey Golubev, and Evgeni Korolev. Kazakhstan is said to have a number of very wealthy private investors who support tennis there.
“It was their decision to leave,” Tarpishchev said. “We let players go who could have quit playing because they didn’t have the money. If we hadn’t done it, you would have never heard their names. They would have died here as players. Consider that they don’t exist. Our second team is dead. The third team is in Kazakhstan, and the second one including Mikhail Elgin and Valery Rudnev died. And they played better than those who left.”
Tarpishchev also countered player Mikhail Youzhny’s claim that he was not asked to play Davis Cup against Brazil, saying that, “Mikhail shouldn’t alter the truth,” and that he talked to his private coach, Boris Sobkin, who said Youzhny did not want to play.
Tarpishchev said that many of the top Russian coaches prefer to teach adults privately because they can earn much more money than coaching promising juniors. He said that there is a plan in place to build 12 tennis academies, but that there isn’t money for it. “It’s a shame when you know which results you could achieve and how to do it, but nobody cares,” he said. My soul hurts from the fact that 90 percent of work is done in vain….We took silver and bronze at the Olympics and the [Sports Ministry] don’t even feel proud for us.”