Besides Sharapova, heralded class of '04 goes MIA

	Of the highly rated quartet of Russian women who burst onto the scene in '04, only Maria Sharapova has become a consistent winner. Bob Martin/SI
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Did you notice that Anastasia Myskina (the 2004 French Open champ) was bounced out of Roland Garros in round one by Meghann Shaughnessy, 6-1, 6-0? They were out on court 16, so maybe no one noticed. What in the world is going on with Myskina? And for that matter, Elena Dementieva and Svetlana Kuznetsova, the latter of whom appears to be doing fine. Your thoughts on the Russian class of '04?
-- Luis Ramos, San Jose, Calif.

Little-known story: There was a guy named Lou Sypher who approached Myskina three years ago and said, "I'll let you win one major but after that I get your tennis soul." She took him up on his offer, won the '04 French Open and has struggled ever since. No offense to Shaughnessy, an admirably hard worker who's maximized her talent, but she should be beating no one 6-1, 6-0 on clay.

As for the Russian Class of '04, Maria Sharapova -- who has spent two-thirds of her life in the U.S. -- is the best of the bunch. Kuznetsova, who spent her formative years in Spain, is next. After that you have some nice players, but a lot of disappointment and -- at the risk of inciting hate mail -- a disproportionate quotient of head cases.

Are you as tired as me of hearing all the American players whine about clay? How they didn't "grow up on it" and therefore don't have the feel for it, blah blah blah. You don't hear the Spaniards or Argentines complaining about hard courts. This is kind of your job! Take some lessons and get over it!
-- Richard Hicks, New York City

But enough double-speak and innuendo. How do you really feel?

I've always been a sucker for the underdog: Monica Seles in '95, Jennifer Capriati in '01 and Lindsay Davenport for any Slam, post-Aussie in '00. But who's the perennial underdog now? It can't be Serena Williams or Martina Hingis (too many Slams between them) -- Amelie Mauresmo's got a deuce of them and Kim Clijsters and Capriati are out of the game these days. Which leaves me with Alicia Molik. Heartbreaking problems, uplifting spirits and fighting to come back, is there any chance the "Female Rafter" can make it back to slam form? And if not her, what female underdog should we be cheering for?
-- Matt, Toronto

Make it situational. On clay, Roger Federer is an underdog. In the latter of rounds of tournaments, Mauresmo remains an underdog. After returning from injury and absence, even the Williams sisters could be construed as underdogs. Also, my rules are any player shorter than I am is an automatic underdog. Same for the scant few remaining players older than I am. Same for the guys with more gray hair. You have no idea how much I love that David Sanguinetti.

As for Molik, if there is any justice, she'll get back into the top 10 and start competing for Slams. Here we have a delightful, mature player who plays creative attacking tennis. Unfortunately, she's never really gotten her mojo back since that strange inner ear malady. And time is not on her side.

If winning all four Slams is a big deal to be considered a GOAT, how come Andre Agassi's name doesn't get thrown out there often for even a remote consideration while players who won all four when most of them were played on grass back in the '60s are always in the mix?
-- Allan Cruz, Exton, Pa.

It's a situation akin to Rafael Nadal. How can you be a GOAT when you weren't even the best player in your era?

I still don't get why it remotely matters if somebody wins all Grand Slams in a calendar year. It takes exactly the same amount of hard work, and the same number of match victories to win four in a row whether you start with the Australian, the French, Wimbledon or the U.S. Open. As far as I'm concerned, if you win four in a row, you're a Grand Slam Champion. End of story. Using the calendar year is simply a vague attempt at preserving a weak semblance of tradition, and nothing more.
-- Matt L., New York City

Reasonable point. The counter -- apart from tradition -- is that tennis is to be viewed as a season, encompassed in a calendar year. The same way a baseball player who goes 10-2 in the second half of a baseball season and 10-2 in the first half of the following season isn't credited with being a 20-game winner, it ain't a true Slam unless the quartet of majors are won between January and December.

Shots, miscellany

• Trivia: How many hard-court Slams are there? If you guessed "one," check this out.

• Anyone else notice that Kateryna and Alona Bondarenko both won matches on Court 15 over Czech opponents by the score of 6-0, 6-1?

• Shery of Hong Kong/Tampa, Fla., passes on this link: "Kim Clijsters, gone but not forgotten."

• There's a new book out titled Charging the Net: A History of Blacks in Tennis from Althea Gibson and Arthur Ashe to the Williams Sisters. The authors are Cecil Harris and Larryette Kyle-DeBose. Here's the amazon.com link.

• If the stats were right, Andy Roddick had one forehand winner on Tuesday; Igor Andreev had 38.

• Eduardo Gigante of São Paulo, Brazil, writes: "This is odder than Novak Djokovic."

• Erwin Ong writes: "Just FYI, some guys created a Roland Garros court on Second Life."

• Ive Beeckmans of Antwerp, Belgium, writes: "The link to Filip Dewulf's blog is wrong, here's the correct one."