Russian tennis on the verge of crisis? Only 17 men’s players ranked inside top 500 with lack of pipeline

With the news this week of Anastasia Potapova deciding to shift over to Austria, it highlights the lack of Russian options as they continue to find themselves bitten by the war in Ukraine especially on the men’s side of the sport.

But he is friends with the other two members of the top 20 who ironically competed in the Gazprom backed exhibition in St Petersburg which ironically featured Anastasia Potapova pre her deciding to shift over to Austria.

Khachanov is next up in World No.18. But it also unearths another problem even further down as while only 17 Russian players are ranked inside the top 500, just eight of them are under the age of 27.

Among those eight younger players, none are ranked inside the world’s top 250. This in contrast with the WTA albeit many are already established in Mirra Andreeva, Ekaterina Alexandrova and Liudmila Samsonova all in the top 20 of the rankings. Diana Shnaider has also previously been top 15 and also plays doubles with Andreeva.

But this pipeline is a problem as even in the women’s game such players as Potapova and Kasatkina have defected whether for the latter due to also fears for her own safety if she was to return to her homeland as well as in Potapova’s case likely due to visa troubles.

Even for established names such as Andreeva, getting into certain tournaments as was murmured even at the end of the last season provided a bit of an issue due to where she is from. While Potapova has now circumnavigated that whether she remains living in Russia or not.

Others have done it for other reasons such as Elena Rybakina and Alexander Bublik who were early movers to Kazakhstan, Elina Avanesyan is of Armenian descent so decided to move to that nation. So while it is not a new practice, it shows that amid all of the restrictions that are placed on Russians that this is now effecting the future stars.

From Medvedev back to Marat Safin for instance there have always been top Russians in the rankings even in the likes of Kuznetsova in the WTA but that could soon be a thing of the past if this continues the trend it has been.

ATP Rankings (Russian players in men’s rankings)