Quotes of the Day

Feeding the cows, cleaning out the pigpen and weeding the potato beds — that's the routine Irina Zhbanova grew up with in Perkhlyai, a desolate village of 740 souls in the depressed Russian republic of Mordovia, 600 km southeast of Moscow. But for the past three years, Zhbanova, 14, has been following another daily routine: for two hours early in the morning and two more after school, she practices her aces and backhands, flat serves and chip shots, footwork and block volleys. "Trying harder makes up for my starting in tennis too late," she says. "All right, I won't jump as high as Elena Dementieva, but tennis is still my spring-board — the only one I have to take me out of here."

This week, Zhbanova and thousands of other teenagers across Russia will be glued to their TV sets, watching Dementieva and the rest of a new generation of Russian tennis stars compete in the U.S. Open. The sport has become a Russian obsession thanks to this wave of glamorous female players — first there was sports-model Anna Kournikova, of course, and then came the ones who can really play, such as Dementieva, 21, and Anastasia Myskina, 22, who have both won tour titles this year; 16-year-old Anna Tchakvetadze, who made the girls' singles final at Wimbledon; Lina Krasnoroutskaya, 19, who beat Kim Clijsters in August at the Rogers AT&T Cup in Toronto; and Maria Sharapova, 16, who hasn't won yet but may become the best of the bunch.

Impoverished Russian kids copy these heroes the way teenagers elsewhere emulate David Beckham or Shaquille O'Neill, as TV and newspaper coverage bring the triumphant, affluent and socially important new stars into virtually every Russian home. Though 40% of the Russian population "cannot afford toothpaste," according to the Moscow daily Izvestia, everyone seems to be playing or watching tennis. They read that Kournikova is now worth at least $30 million. They hear of Sharapova, risen from poverty in the Black Sea town of Sochi and now happily settled in the U.S. "For the poor in Russia," says Moscow coach Vladimir Altukhov, "tennis now stands for [what] the NBA does for the poor blacks in the U.S.: their only chance of making it."

Zhbanova is one of those with a slim chance of making her dreams come true. An aggressive all-rounder — neither as easygoing as Kournikova nor as lissome as Sharapova, less talented but possibly more determined than either — she ranked first in her age group last summer at the Mordovian Republican Games and won the 2002 Head of Mordovia Cup, the highest tennis prize in the region. Standing on the outskirts of her dusty village like a monument to Zhbanova's potential is a professional outdoor tennis court, high concrete walls surrounding it to keep out cows and vandals. Built for the village by a ranking federal-level official who comes from Perkhlyai, it is simply the best thing that ever happened to her. It is also, says her coach Yevgeny Tyurin, "her only chance of getting out of this desperate and hopeless poverty." Her parents are village schoolteachers, but they don't have the money to send her to university in the Mordovian capital of Saransk, 30 km away, where tuition is free but living expenses are, they say, well beyond their means.

And so day in and day out Zhbanova practices with her brother Alexei, 11, and two dozen schoolmates. She is relentless, as if each whack of the ball brings her closer to the world of money, fame and freedom. "Tennis to me means prestige in Mordovia and the way to society," Zhbanova says, a smile lighting up her broad, healthy face. Her goals: becoming a tennis coach in Moscow or, failing that, in Saransk. Before tennis brought her there three years ago, Saransk had seemed as distant and inaccessible as Paris or Moscow. "Now, once a week in winter, we get to train on an indoor court in Saransk," she says proudly.

In 1990, the U.S.S.R. had less than 200 courts; today, Russia alone has over 2,500. "The erstwhile chamber sport has become new Russia's national game and way of life," says Shamil Tarpishchev, president of the Russian Tennis Federation (RTF). Last year, the Russian Tennis Tour had 1,020 tournaments in 81 cities, compared to 120 in the U.S.S.R. in 1990. But the real boom among young people has happened in the last few years. In 1999, Russian tennis clubs enrolled just 9,000 players under 18. Now, they enroll 19,000.

The tennis binge is most conspicuous in Moscow, where the Dinamo Tennis Palace operates nine outdoor courts and two indoor ones, and has four more under construction to accommodate new clients "who are coming in droves," says director Grigory Maly. The state-of-the-art Valery tennis club, launched by Tarpishchev in 1998, offers 18 indoor and 22 outdoor courts that host both élite players and a children's tennis academy.

But the boom has spread even to small cities that can hardly afford it. Three years ago, the Mordovian government drained a huge swamp that had lain for ages in the center of Saransk. Now, the six outdoor courts of the Saransk Tennis Stadium and a children's tennis school occupy the site. "Just a couple of years ago a tennis player would seem as out of place in Saransk as an extraterrestrial," says Larisa Saulina, news anchor for Mordovia's state-run TV station. "Now, tennis comes as a habitual part of life."

Mordovia spends just $3 million of its meager budget of $183 million on sports. To help build the courts and sponsor tennis events, Nikolai Kalinichenko, Mordovia's Foreign Economic Relations Minister and president of the Republican Tennis Federation, asked local businesses — like Talina, the leading agricultural holding company — to chip in. In return, they get free advertising and favors from the regional government. Last month, the Russian Tennis Tour (RTT), an umbrella body launched by the RFT, held a $25,000 prize-fund international challenger-class tournament on the new Saransk courts.

Zhbanova wished she could have played at that tournament, which might have taken her a step closer to her dream of winning the coveted Russia's Cup and eventually a scholarship. "But I couldn't afford a week in Saransk," she says, unable to hide her frustration. Though she's not a child prodigy, her coach, Tyurin, believes she has the ability and perseverance to make it as a professional. But, he says, "her progress is contingent on the money, and this is where it hurts."

Teaching drawing and Russian language at Perkhlyai's school pays Zhbanova's parents some $130 a month for their family of four. "We are ready to sell all we have just to give our kids a chance," says her father, Alexander, 40. Adds his wife, Yelizaveta, 36: "I don't want them to waste their lives cleaning pigpens here, the way we have."

Some parents do sell their possessions to pay for their children's tennis career, hoping for future returns that almost never come. But tennis requires far more funds than the Zhbanovs can raise. An average club charges $10 to $50 per hour to play. Tennis gear costs run into the hundreds. Taking part in a three-day tournament abroad costs at least $1,500 per person, and the kids have to be escorted by their parents. Still, "so many people have dollar signs in their eyes," sighs Larisa Preobrazhenskaya, the legend of Russian tennis, once the first female racket of the U.S.S.R., and coach since 1964 — the one who raised and trained Kournikova. She frets that "crazy tennis parents" motivated by greed are pushing their kids like slaves only to ruin them. It's not just the poor who do it, she says: "Glamour is a more sophisticated drug than money." Parents are bringing their hopefuls to her from all over Russia. "But they're taking horrible risks," she sighs. "And what if all their effort proves in vain?"

At the same time, "tennis parents" remain the only way kids can get discovered. Russian tennis cannot afford scouts to comb the country for talent. Children might catch the eye of a tennis boss as they move upward from local to regional and national tournaments in the RTT. But unless parents like Zhbanova's make an effort to promote their stars and find sponsors, they have no chance.

Historically, tennis was neglected by the Soviet sports machine. It was simply not useful. The state gave priority to Olympic sports that could boost its worldwide image, and tennis was dropped from the Games in 1924. It was only in 1988, when tennis was restored as a medal Olympic sport, that the state slowly began to support the game. The regime kept a special tennis coach for the top members of the Communist Party, as well as spies and diplomats — "to make contacts and develop sources," Tarpishchev says. Tennis was compulsory as well for the cosmonauts' training program as the only game that fully relaxes one's brain.

But the real breakthrough happened in 1990, when Yeltsin was photographed on a tennis court in shorts. His immense popularity at the time helped bring tennis to the masses. "Several factors just fell into place," says Yevgeny Zuyenko, Izvestia's sports editor. The élite followed the leader. The poor saw the money that top players were making. And bureaucrats and businessmen found a way to make a killing.

In 1992, after Tarpishchev, Yeltsin's coach and longtime confidant, founded the National Sports Foundation (nsf), Yeltsin gave it the right to import untaxed alcohol and tobacco. In the next four years, some $9 billion in revenues was allegedly diverted from the nsf. The ensuing scandal helped drive from power the Kremlin faction Tarpischev belonged to, though he has denied wrongdoing and no one has ever been charged. Moreover, tennis also makes a nice place to park ill-gotten gains. "The dirty money invested in courts seems more presentable than the dirty money just tucked away," says Izvestia's Zuyenko.

Far removed from such concerns, Zhbanova doggedly sticks to her practice. Last January, she happened to be in Saransk as rtt officials were showing off the Davis Cup, won in Paris a month earlier by Mikhail Youzhny. It was -25°C, Kalinichenko recalls, but some 8,000 people, including Zhbanova, gathered in the city square to stare at the cup, "so proud and patriotic they felt about our country's great victory."

Zhbanova is more pragmatic. "The sight of that cup," she remembers, "made me even more eager to make it." Then she grabs her racket and gets back to work.

• YURI ZARAKHOVICH | Perkhlyai
• Young Russians turn to tennis as a path from poverty