On Tuesday, Elena Dementieva recovered from a rough start and powered
past compatriot Nadia Petrova to reach the semis here for the first
time since 2004, when she reached the final and was a shadow of herself
in falling to Anastasia Myskina.
But on Tuesday, it was fifth seed
Dementieva who showed off her best stuff in the last two sets, yanking
Petrova around the court with a relentless crosscourt game and showing
little effects of the two leg injuries that have bothered her all
tournament.
Petrova had said prior to the match that when Russians
play each other it's always a “battle to the death” and her words rang
true on Court Suzanne Lenglen.
Midway through the first set, both
women went off the court to have injuries treated. Petrova returned to
the court with a thigh wrap, while it appeared that Dementieva had her
thigh rewrapped and had removed tape from her sore calf. Petrova showed
flashes of the form that saw her take down Aravane Rezai and Venus
Williams, but was visibly troubled by her thigh in the second and third
sets, hobbling between points, and struggling to chase down balls. At
one point she looked like she may even retire injured, and later
admitted that she did consider forfeiting the match.
"Yeah, I had
this kind of a thought as well in the third set, but it's just so
difficult to quit and walk away because you just want to give it all.
Anything can happen. On clay somebody can sprain the ankle and not able
to continue. It's very unpredictable. I don't like quitting as much as I
I like to finish till the end, even though I'm not 100%," said Petrova.
In
the end, Dementieva, who is arguably the best woman on tour not to have
won a Slam, was faster, smarter and much more accurate off the ground,
ripping 24 winners and breaking her rival six times.
“It's not
about showing your best tennis. It's about winning matches,” Dementieva
said. “In this kind of [cool and windy] weather conditions, you really
have to push yourself very hard and, stay positive, try to win no matter
what. I think I had some good tennis here and there, but it was
difficult. It's all about your good preparation, how fit you are and how
mentally tough you can stay during the two weeks to be able to win such
a difficult challenge. So I think [Roland Garros] the most exciting
one.”
The two came into the match with their head to head even at
7-7 (including qualifying and Futures events), but Dementieva looked
more self assured in the last two sets and rarely backed off going for
the lines and corners when she received short balls.
The
28-year-old Dementieva will play the 29-year-old Italian Francesca
Schiavone in the semis, who upended No.3 Caroline Wozniacki to become
the first Italian woman to reach a Slam semi in the Open Era.
The
fifth-ranked Dementieva has reached the semis of all four majors and
also reached the final of the 2004 US Open, where she lost to Svetlana
Kuznetsova. She's won 16 career titles and the Olympic gold medal, but
has a large space on her trophy shelf that's reserved for a Roland
Garros trophy.
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