It is time to switch from spectacular but ineffective political races to more valuable, constructive, and no less interesting things, like sport, culture, and art — otherwise we will miss out on something very important. There is a new trend in Ukrainian sports whose heights are being scaled in pairs. After the world-famous boxing brothers Vitalii and Volodymyr Klychko, it is now the turn of the Kharkiv tennis players, sisters Olena and Kateryna Bondarenko, who won the women’s doubles title at the Australian Open in Melbourne.
On Jan. 25, the Rod Laver Arena was the site of the women’s final game, when the Bondarenko sisters won 2-6, 6-1, and 6-4 against 12th seeded Viktoria Azarenka of Belarus and Israeli Shahar Peer in a match lasting nearly two hours and uncharacteristically dominated by baseline rallies, www.tennis.sport.com.ua reports. Olena and Kateryna lost the first set but managed to rally. They had the chance to serve for the match at 5-2, but missed the serve before sealing a victory on their first match point at 5-4, when Azarenka hit a backhand return into the net.
This is the first time the Bondarenko sisters have won a doubles title in their 38th tournament playing together. Their previous best was reaching three semi-finals in WTA Tour events.
“Last year we didn’t play very good doubles because sometimes we fight on the court,” Olena Bondarenko told reporters. “But now we are starting to listen to each other and understand. Maybe that’s the key.”
If only our politicians followed this recipe! But to do this, you have to have real character and professionalism, work hard, and know exactly the goal you are trying to achieve. Only then will victory come — a victory for your country, not just for yourself. But the impression is that these are just empty words for our politicians.
The sisters said they will continue playing both singles and doubles but would prefer not to play against each other in important tournaments.
“Yes, for me it’s not easy because she plays more winners and has a good serve, good shots,” Olena said of her younger sister Kateryna. “She knows me very well, all my strong and weak sides, and can outplay me easier than other girls.”
This is the first time since 2003 that the Australian Open has been won by sisters, after Serena and Venus Williams.
THE DAY’S FACT FILE
Olena Bondarenko, born in 1984, is Ukraine’s first and the world’s 25th best tennis player (as of 2007). Her sister Kateryna was born in 1986. Both are professional tennis players. They trained in Kharkiv, Kyiv, and London. Their sister Valeria also plays tennis.
The Australian Open is a Grand Slam-series tournament with a prize fund of $20.6 million. Matches are held on open courts with a synthetic covering. The first one, called the Australasian Tennis Championship, was held in Melbourne in 1905. Seventeen players took part in it, and the final game was watched by 5,000 spectators. In 1927 the tournament was renamed the Australian Championship. It became an open one and was given the present name in 1969. Since 1988 it has been held at Melbourne Park.
