Racket-wielding Russians have flourished this year at the United States Open. Two Russian women met Friday in one of the women’s semifinals, and a Russian man will face the world’s No. 1 player, Roger Federer, in the men’s semifinals today.
New York’s immigrant enclaves are often galvanized when teams or athletes from their nations of origin enjoy success on the international sporting stage. So it is no surprise that a wave of tennis fever has swept Brighton Beach, the Brooklyn neighborhood that calls itself Little Russia by the Sea.
But here the passion was concentrated on a single spot, a modest tennis court abutting the Coney Island boardwalk, where a noisy crowd of grade-school tennis fanatics took lessons at a local Jewish community center.
“It can be a dangerous neighborhood and it is a good place to go,” said Leo Kogan, who began coaching at the Shorefront Young Men’s-Young Women’s Hebrew Association soon after immigrating from Moscow in 1991.
When he arrived, he spoke little English, but he quickly thrived at Shorefront, where parents and former pupils say he has a magic touch.
“Sports don’t require a lot of words,” said Sue Fox, the executive director of the Shorefront center.
Kogan is a local institution, giving lessons to as many as a 100 students at a time. He also gives classes for the disabled.
One of his former students recently moved on to the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy in Bradenton, Fla.
“I was 9 years old and I was walking by on the boardwalk on my way home from ballet and I saw them playing tennis and that’s all I wanted to do,” the 14-year-old Katherine Nedianik said in a telephone interview.
Many more of his students have simply discovered a passion for a sport that has been thriving in recent years in Russia.
Yesterday, Svetlana Kuznetsova, the 2004 Open champion, dispatched her 20-year-old countrywoman Anna Chakvetadze, 3-6, 6-1, 6-1. Another Russian, Nikolay Davydenko, will face the top-ranked Roger Federer of Switzerland in one of the men’s semifinal matches today.
Yesterday afternoon, as thousands of fans paid top dollar to watch elite tennis at Flushing Meadows, grandparents watched Kogan coach their Americanized grandchildren through a battery of tennis skills.
“He doesn’t want to eat or sleep, only play tennis,” Maria Bukhalyuk said of her grandson Nick Papyan, one of the 10-year-olds swinging his racket at the Shorefront.
