The Girls of Eastern Europe - 網球 Tennis

http://tinyurl.com/2ub6gd
官網寫了一篇東歐女孩的文章，當然本版也是東歐範圍。
文中也說到以往東歐網球勢力是俄羅斯和捷克
(或許在ptt裡捷克也算弱勢XD 因為大部分球迷都不曉得
Vaidisova也被認為是俄娃 ╮(﹀_﹀")╭ )

Monday, September 3, 2007
By Neil Schlecht

Teenagers from Poland, Hungary and Belarus Stage a Coming-Out Party

One by one, a succession of puzzling names lit up the scoreboards of women's
singles around the grounds at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis
Center over the weekend: Agnieszka Radwanska. Agnes Szavay. Victoria Azarenka.

Not even most tennis insiders had heard of these girls, all just 18 years
old, before the start of the year's final Grand Slam.

They have now. The youngsters, fresh faces with both guts and game, have
instantly made a name for themselves at the 2007 US Open, staging their
coming-out parties at the expense of some established stars.

Even casual fans are familiar with their victims, some of the biggest names
in women’s tennis: Sharapova. Hingis. Petrova.

So who are the new girls of Eastern Europe?

They aren't from Russia or the Czech Republic, the expected tennis
powerhouses that for years have populated the top 20. Instead, the debutantes
are from satellite countries that also formed part of the Soviet bloc just
two decades ago but had yet to be heard from in women’s tennis. Poland.
Hungary. Belarus.
這些女孩不是從以往的東歐網球強權俄羅斯和捷克出身的，而是從過去蘇聯統治過的
波蘭，匈牙利和白俄羅斯。(照著翻，我歷史並不好)

Seizing the spotlight from their more experienced elders, the teenagers
created a stir when they all advanced to the round of 16 in a period of about
six hours Saturday afternoon. They're all lodged on the lopsidedly weak
bottom half of the draw, which now reads more like a roster of Olympic
gymnasts.
這些女孩抓住了可以成為焦點的機會，打敗了這些有經驗的選手，打進16強讓下半部
較弱的部分更像奧運會體操場上的名單。

As insanely wide open as that section of the draw is, with only the top
seeds, No. 4 Svetlana Kuznetsova and No. 6 Anna Chakvetadze, remaining, any
of the upstarts now stand an excellent chance of sneaking into the semis or—
gasp!—even the final.

Only a short time ago, these girls—er, women—were still playing juniors,
which is one of the reasons they've taken fans—and their early opponents—
by surprise. None has ever gone deeper than the fourth round at a major.

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[下面是Radwanska的部分，至於Szavay和Azarenka可以上官網看]
Agnieszka Radwanska, from Krakow, Poland, keeps rats for pets and has metal
braces on her teeth. She has made the most noise, pulling off the biggest
upset of the tournament over the game’s biggest star, Maria Sharapova.
Audaciously crowding the service line and disrupting Sharapova’s normally
imperious game, the 5-foot-7 Radwanska confidently strode into the fourth
round. “I have nothing to lose,” she said after the shocking upset. “Just
hit the ball, every ball.”

About her efforts to move in on Sharapova’s serve, which some commentators
have criticized as the kind of conduct that belongs in junior play, Radwanska
said unapologetically, “I knew that she doesn't like if somebody is moving
if she serving.”

“I was thinking that everybody is going to be against me because she's a
star, she's a top player. But after, I think it was different. Like everybody
was surprised something, you know, like somebody can beat the winner of last
year,” she added.

Rather than playing robotic, grunt-heavy power tennis, Radwanska is scrappy,
relying not only on unusual tactics but spins, angles and off-speed
counter-punching—exactly the kind of thing that would frustrate a ball
cruncher like the defending champ Sharapova. Radwanska won a WTA tournament
at Stockholm earlier this year, and among the new crop of teens, she owns the
only seed (No. 30), as well as the deepest foray into a major: the fourth
round at Wimbledon.
---

後面作者也寫了一些什麼籤表不平均的話，是事實沒錯，不過我只喜歡下面這句話。
In other words, the top of the draw is the present, while on bottom, the
future of women’s tennis. Right now, that future seems to belong to the
girls of Eastern Europe.
換句話說，上半部的籤表可以代表現今女子網壇，而下半部，則可以感覺到女網的未來，
現在看來，似乎這個未來是屬於東歐女孩的。

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