Russian Literature

"Titan, I am an author by trade, not a tennis player. What's your excuse for your poor play?" harrumphed an exasperated Vladimir 'Russkie' Kartsev at the end of his ordeal playing two sets along side the 'bombastic bloviator.' Titan was taunting the Russian expatriate that he was toying with the idea of "Ivan the TERRIBLE" as this blog's topic until 'Russkie' redeemed himself with some improved play in TT/'Russkie' hard fought second set loss (5-7) to Joe 'Gimpy Knees' Cruz and Lou 'Pistol "Gerenscer this afternoon at Kinsley. I do not consider myself in the class of a Pasternak, Chekhov or Solzhenitsyn but I have written a successful book about contemporary Russian politics that has been widely hailed. Have you ever heard of Vladimir Zhirinovski, a democratic Russian reformer in the 1990's?" "I want you to play like Andre Chesnikov or Mikhail Youzhny" whined the 'wounded wimp'! After the way you played in our (4-6) defeat at the hands of 'Big Al' DioDati and 'Happy Jack' Carey in the opening set, I was thinking of you more as Nikolay Davydenko who has been fined for tanking matches and betting on his opponents!