Just in time for a wave of political unrest among young, Internet-savvy Russians—it's Marat Safin to the rescue! Safin was elected to the nation's Duma, the lower house of its Parliament, in elections in mid-December.
That new Duma, among which Safin at age 31 is of course one of the youngest members, was to begin convening on Dec. 21. Safin is a member of soon-to-be-embattled president Vladimir Putin's party, United Russia.
Compatriot Anna Chakvetadze, however, had her political aspirations blunted by the election. Running as a Right Cause Party candidate for a seat in the Duma, she was not elected. But the sterling silver lining for her is that she's still young and can return to tennis now, having been given a clean bill of health after a scary inner ear infection that knocked her out of the competitive game for the bulk of 2011.
Chakvetadze, now just 24, was tapped as a rising star alongside Victoria Azarenka in 2009 in a photo shoot for FHM magazine: