Vera Zvonareva was born in 7th of
September 1984 in Moscow, Russia, as daughter of Natalia
Bykova, who is a former Olympic Bronze Medallist for grass
hockey.
The russian no 3 is a good, but conservative baseliner.
She tries to hit simple but effective shots, and that had
brought her a long way already. Now, with the help of her
coach Kashevarova she hopes to adopt a more aggressive
style of play, by improving her fluctuating serve and
volleys. If achieved and added to her strong backhand
return, this will make Zvonareva a true challenge to the
titans of the game such as Clijsters, Henin, the Williams
Sisters, Davenport or Dokic.
Vera has already reached position no 16 in the wta-world
rankings, though she is only 18. After a rather poor start
into the season she reached the quarterfinals of Indian
Wells (lost to Capriati), Charleston (lost to Davenport),
Berlin (lost to Henin) and the French Open (lost to
Petrova), the semifinal of Strasbourgh and captured the
title at Bol (a tier III that is).
By far the biggest win in her young career she posted the
French Open as she beat Venus Williams there in nearly two
hours 2-6, 6-2 and 6-4. In that match she hit only 13
winners (Williams 44) and actually scored less points as
Venus (99 to 103) but these stats also show that Vera
played her best tennis at crucial points. And also that
she has an average first serve speed of below 150 km,
which is about the average second serve speed of players
like Capriati or Jelena was no decisive disadvantage on
that day.
All together Vera is a young talented girl on the way to
the top, like Jelena was 2 years ago, who can beat about
every player on a good day, but i also found names like
Cho, Molik or Coetzer on the (short) list of players who
beat the 1.72 meters tall girl this year.
Jelena Dokic reached the third round after a first round
bye and an impressive second round win over Widjaja,
whilst Vera beat both Kuznetsova and Washington in
straight sets to gain the honour to play the most talented
girl on the tour.
The winner will face either Suarez or Hantuchova.
