Alexander Volkov considered one of the first stars of Russian tennis. He performed on the international stage back in the 80s, when our athletes were just beginning to be released on independent foreign tours. Soon the Russian achieved recognition abroad, earning a solid reputation. After the end of his career, huge prospects opened up before him – however, addiction prevented Alexander from realizing himself.

22 years after leaving the sport, the famous tennis player died from a terrible binge.

“He did not differ in special diligence”

Volkov started playing tennis in Kaliningrad. The future champion was lucky in many respects with his homeland: at that time in a remote area there was one of the most developed tennis infrastructures in the country, which had remained since German times.

Valery Shklyar, Alexander’s first coach, later said that “he did not differ in special diligence”, but he was “exceptionally gifted”. Collective classes helped to reveal the athlete’s talent: competition greatly motivated the young athlete.

He came to sports quite late – at the age of 10, but by the age of 15 he was showing solid results. At this moment, Volkov faced the first serious challenge: the tennis player received a fracture in his right shoulder, due to which he was out of action for six months. Alexander even thought about switching to football, but in the end he retrained as a left-hander – and continued to perform.

Members of the USSR national tennis team Alexander Zverev (left) and Alexander Volkov / Photo: © RIA Novosti / Yuri Somov

14th racket of the world

A breakthrough in Volkov’s career happened when he was 19 years old. The tennis player reached the final of the USSR championship, and then went to his first international tournament. Alexander was lucky to start international tours in times of transition for the country: the state paid for the trips in full, and all the premium players were taken away for themselves, and not given to the Sports Committee. As the athlete himself later said, they took the best from socialism and capitalism.

A year later, the Russian first announced himself at the Grand Slam tournaments. Volkov reached the 1/8 finals of Wimbledon on the first try, beating the best player on the planet, Stefan Edberg, in three sets, although he himself was not even in the top 500 rating. Alexander continued to progress, and already in 1991 he won his first title in Milan. The peak of the tennis player’s career came in 1993: the 26-year-old athlete made it to the semi-finals of the US Open, becoming the 14th racket of the world.

Later, Volkov became famous as part of his performances for the national team. Together with Yevgeny Kafelnikov, the tennis player reached the Davis Cup final twice in a row, but in both cases, the Russian team was content with only silver.

Alexander Volkov / Photo: © Ken Levine / Staff / Getty Images Sport / Gettyimages.ru

“I’ve been idle for two years”

At the age of 30, Volkov, whose potential by that time had not been exhausted at all, unexpectedly announced his retirement. By that time, Alexander had accumulated a solid $ 3.3 million in prize money for those times – and planned to just relax:

“I was idle for two years. He spat at the ceiling, spent money, traveled with his wife abroad. In short, he wasted his life. At first I liked it, and then I realized that I was tired of idleness. He looked at himself in the mirror: his cheeks were rounded, his tummy appeared, he began to weigh more than 90 kilograms. No, I think it won’t work, you can’t turn into a pig, ”AiF quotes Alexander.

In the late 90s, Volkov tried himself as a manager: he became the general director of the Kremlin Cup. The specifics of this work, however, did not suit the athlete: the organization of a large tournament turned out to be an exhausting task.

As a result, Alexander switched to the coaching path, where he showed himself very well. Volkov coached the men’s and women’s national teams of Russia, and also managed to work with many young talents: from Anastasia Myskina and Elena Dementieva to Mikhail Yuzhny and Marat Safin. Working with the latter turned out to be especially fruitful: it was under the leadership of Volkov that Safin made a sensation by winning the US Open in 2000.

– On the way to the final, I had breakfast in the car, and the coach told me: don’t drain, don’t zass. Take at least a couple of games in each set. And so I went out to the court with such an attitude. He smacked me, I already decided that I would lose, and in the end I went to the match without any pressure, ”Sports.ru cites Safin’s memories.

Marat Safin / Photo: © Jon Buckle – EMPICS / Contributor / PA Images / Gettyimages.ru

“He said he couldn’t get out of the binge”

Unfortunately, Volkov did not have a stable coaching career: the potential of a specialist was killed by alcohol addiction. It developed in a former tennis player a few years before his death. Alexander confessed to friends that, starting to drink, he could no longer stop. The athlete regularly went into long bouts and was periodically treated in special clinics, but in vain.

The famous tennis player Andrei Chesnokov said that in June 2019 he offered Volkov to go to the World Championships. However, he replied that he was unlikely to be able to get out of the binge. Chesnokov cheered up his comrade, said that he believed in him. And indeed, after a while, Alexander seemed to have left the hospital “clean” …

But it was not possible to hold out for long, especially since there was no one to support Volkov: by that time, his wife had long since left him with her son. Soon, the once famous tennis player went into another heavy binge, which the body could no longer stand. In October 2019, Volkov died suddenly at the age of only 52.