Russian Cup (tennis)


The Russian Cup is an annual major national Russian sports award given to tennis players, coaches, companies and other organizations and people that contributed in the development of that sport in Russia. The cup was established in 1994 by then-Vice President of the Russian Tennis Federation Dmitry Vikharev and the President of IC Arman. It was organized by Anatoly Gusev in the following two years, and after his death in 1996 his wife Lyudmila Guseva and businessman Alexander Cherkasov continued its organization.
Since 1998 the committee includes such major tennis people as President of the RTF Shamil Tarpishchev. That year the place for the ceremony was relocated from the Cinema Centre "Solovey" on the Krasnaya Presna to the Radisson Slavyanskaya Hotel. Only once in 2003 was the award presented in the Cinema House in Moscow. The awardee receives a statue illustrating the Russian two-headed eagle, which was created by designer Igor Kamenev. The record holders of most wins are tennis legend Yevgeny Kafelnikov and RTF President Shamil Tarpishchev; Kafelnikov received the prize eight times in a row from 1994 to 2001 as best male tennis player and one time in 2002 as a team member, and Tarpishchev got the trophy at every occasion from 2000 to 2008 and in 2013. The Kremlin Cup was named top tournament nine times, once as the organiser of the professional and the junior events.

Awardees

1994