It was billed as a new Cold War showdown but the Americans never stood a chance: Russia's women blew them away to reach their fourth Fed Cup tennis final in five years over the weekend.

A decade after Anna Kournikova first lit up Wimbledon, Russians have conquered the women's game through a combination of beauty, power and a ruthless will to win. They claim seven of the top 20 rankings. Britain's finest comes in at 115th. As on court, so in life. The tennis stars are merely the poster girls of a new generation of Russian women who employ every weapon in their arsenal to get what they want. Now.

The arrival of spring sunshine has filled Moscow's streets with women engaged in a Darwinian struggle for attention. Dressed to kill and teetering on impossibly high stilettos, their goal is simple: to capture a man who will keep them in the manner to which they intend to be accustomed.

Russian has no word for “feminism” and imported the term from English. Most women here still regard it as a synonym for ugly or covert lesbianism, while the status of Sterva, the Russian for “bitch”, is greatly admired. Whole shelves in bookstores are devoted to titles such as How to be the Successful Sterva that Everyone will Envy and Why Men Marry Stervas: a Women's Guide to Winning her Man's Heart.

A recent advice book co-authored by Ksenia Sobchak, Russia's nearest thing to an “it” girl, was titled Married to a Millionaire and cheerfully declared: “There are enough oligarchs in Russia to go round! Your equipment: a smile, a sense of humour, optimism and fervour.” With 110 billionaires and 131,000 millionaires in Russia, the claim does not seem so outlandish.

As many former wives attest, Russians attach little stigma to the pursuit of power by beauty. When a newspaper erroneously linked President Putin with the shapely former gymnast Alina Kabaeva, who is half his age, the tone of its report was not so much scandalised as awe-struck. It declared: “If this is true, then Alina Kabaeva will be the envy of every girl in Russia.” Except, presumably, Mrs Putin, who remains very much married to her husband.

But all is fair in love and wallets. The notion that smart girls don't stoop to employing feminine wiles would be met by the immaculately arched eyebrows of women boasting PhDs. There is good reason for such hard-nosed pragmatism. Four fifths of marriages end in divorce and the sense of impermanence lends urgency to a desire to get as much as you can for as long as possible.

Rather like a tennis career. Edvard Radzinsky, the historian, once noted: “The Russian invasion of the tennis Klondike is in full swing. But there is a world beyond tennis and they will have it too. The Russian girls are coming. They don't want to change the world. They want to conquer it.”

Tony Halpin is Moscow correspondent

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