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2021 has been a monumental year for Russian tennis. With their Davis Cup campaign culminating in a title triumph on Sunday, Russia have completed a sweep of all three tournaments in men's and women's tennis played between national teams this year.
That includes the ATP Cup, the Billie Jean King Cup and the Davis Cup. Additionally, Russia also secured three medals at the Tokyo Olympics held this year -- one gold medal and two silver medals -- finishing as the country with the most medals in tennis at the event.
Russia At the Grand Slams
There has been at least one player from Russia in the final at every Grand Slam in 2021.
Daniil Medvedev was the runner-up of the men's singles at the 2021 Australian Open. At the French Open, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova finished as the runner-up of the women's singles while Elena Vesnina/Aslan Karatsev finished as the runners-up of the mixed doubles.
Veronika Kudermetova/Elena Vesnina featured in the women's doubles final at Wimbledon. The crowning glory for the Russians was Medvedev lifting the trophy at the US Open to win his first Grand Slam title.
Olympics and the ATP Finals
At the Olympics, Pavlyuchenkova/Andrey Rublev won the gold medal in the mixed doubles category. Karen Khachanov won silver in men's singles. And Vesnina/Karatsev won silver in the mixed doubles.
The Tokyo Olympics was the best haul ever for Russia in the sport, bettering their tally from 2008 when they swept all the medals in the women's singles event to win one gold, silver and bronze medal each.
This year, Medvedev also finished second at the Nitto ATP Tour Finals. This meant that a Russian had featured in at least one of the finals (singles or doubles) of nine major events this season.
Davis Cup and Billie Jean King Cup
The Russian Davis Cup team has two players in the top five -- Medvedev and Rublev. With the exception of Evgeny Donskoy, the rest of the members are in the top 40 of the ATP rankings. No other participating team had as many high-ranked players.
All five players on the Russian team which took part in the Billie Jean King Cup were ranked in the top 40. It was the only one among the 12 teams in the finals to have such high-ranked players.
Russia had not won the Davis Cup since 2006. Back then, it was a five-match affair and the Russians had Marat Safin and Nikolay Davydenko playing for them. They reached the final in 2007, but lost to the United States.
Russian women have fared better than their male counterparts. Since their last win at the Fed Cup in 2008, they reached the finals thrice, losing once to Italy (2013) and twice to the Czech Republic (2011 and 2015).
After their win, the Russian men have three Davis Cup titles to their name, and move into ninth place on the list of winners with the most trophies. The women's team, meanwhile, have five Billie Jean King Cup titles and move into fourth place on the all-time list.
2021 has been the biggest year for Russian tennis since 2004
This marks Russia's biggest year in the sport since 2004.
That year, the women's singles at the French Open (Anastasia Myskina), Wimbledon (Maria Sharapova) and US Open (Svetlana Kuznetsova) were all won by Russians.
Elena Dementieva finished as the runner-up at Roland Garros and the US Open. The erstwhile Fed Cup, now known as the Billie Jean King Cup, was also won by Russia.
Russian tennis players have been forced to compete under the name of Russian Tennis Federation (RTF) at international team events and play under the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) at the Olympics.
They have also been prevented from using the Russian flag or the national anthem, as the country is technically serving a two-year ban by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) due to a doping-related scandal.
Speaking on the issue at the press conference after winning his Davis Cup semifinal tie, Medvedev pointed out how it personally helped serve as yet another motivating factor for him:
"Me, when I'm on court, I know which country I'm representing. I know what is my national anthem," Medvedev said.
"If we win it, we're all going to be disappointed by the small details, but at the same time a win is a win, a victory is a victory. So, yeah, doesn't really affect the performance on the court. Hopefully that can help us to win," he added.
