NEW YORK, September 12 (RIA Novosti's Andrei Loshchilin) - Svetlana Kuznetsova, 19, St. Petersburg, beat Yelena Dementieva, 22, Moscow, 6-3, 7-5 in the final match on Saturday to win the U.S. Open Female Singles.
Kuznetsova is the first Russian woman to win the U.S. Open. Back in 2000, Marat Safin was the first Russian male tennis player to do that.
Now that Kuznetsova has taken the U.S. Open, she joins Anastasia Myskina at Roland Garros and Maria Sharapova at Wimbledon to make three of four of this years' Grand Slam competitions won by Russian women. Last time nationals of the same country - Kathy Jordan, Chris Evert, and Tracy Austin of the U.S. - did it 25 years ago.
Before receiving the silver cup and a check for $1 million, Kuznetsova, when asked why there were so many Russian women at the top of world lawn tennis of late, said, "Because Russia is a very strong country, I presume."
