Svetlana Kuznetsova has stubbed Russian-born Australian Anastasia Rodionova after she was beaten 6-4, 2-6, 6-4 Kuznetsova by-passed the waiting Rodionov, shook the umpires hand and left the court without shaking her opponents hand, much to the crowds disgust.
In her previous match Anastasia had not endeared herself to the English crowd, beating home crowd favourite Anne Keothavong, repeatedly complaining about line calls and arguing with the umpire throughout the match. Her behaviour distracted her opponents. Rodionova’s antics are well known after she was removed from a match in Cincinnati in 2007 for poor behaviour, firing a ball into the crowd towards her opponents supporters.
The Australian defended herself after the match, saying; “When they make one or two really bad mistakes you don’t trust the umpire when he didn’t overrule once for me, especially when it is in such a tight situation. Of course, you know you are playing against a local girl and all the linesmen are locals so you kind of hope that the chair umpire would overrule. He didn’t, so . . . I actually want to see a replay of this match and see how it was because I did question some calls but when you are in the match you want everything to go in when you hit.”
Svetlana, who has slipped from 3 to 19 in the world rankings since the beginning of the year has played some woeful tennis at best this year. Apparently it was this same behaviour that irritated the prickly Russian. She later took to Twitter and posted this: “guys after match like that i dont even want to answer to u about my longest match,even if i would know)))))”
