Defending Dementieva
Galen E. Bull
It hasn’t been easy, especially lately. Elena Dementieva is the proverbial bridesmaid but never a bride. The Olympic gold was fine, but I think even she knows a Slam title would be finer. She’s been close and was a net cord away from her first Wimbledon final only to lose to Serena Williams in what was called the best women’s match in recent memory.
Elena Dementieva
In Australia, she was leading Serena in their semifinal match when the tournament officials decided to close the roof due to the heat. All that did was favor a badly out-of-shape Serena and allow her to recover and win the match.
The Rogers Cup title before the U.S. Open was a nice win over Maria Sharapova, but even I’ll say it was partially due to Maria’s semifinal match the night prior going well past midnight due to a rain delay. In the final, Sharapova was visibly fatigued and there were of course, the double faults.
I’m not going to say time is running out because Elena is only 27. But easing up on her tournament schedule would help. She played tournaments in Auckland and Sydney leading into the Australian Open and won them both. Leading into the U.S. Open she played Stanford, Cincinnati and Toronto in successive weeks. One less warm-up event may have prevented the loss to Melanie Oudin.
She had a lackluster end to the 2009 season. Her Asian tourney swing consisted of a second round loss to 33rd ranked Kateryna Bondarenko in Tokyo. In Beijing, she suffered a quarterfinal loss to Agnieszka Radwanska. She managed only one win in the year end tour championships over Venus Williams and ended the year ranked at number five.
She worked hard to improve her serve and has the best ground strokes in the women’s game. I do think things will eventually gel for her and she’ll play her best in a Slam instead of peaking at a smaller tournament.
If she can't come through in the clutch moments, then she doesn't deserve it. She fluctuates so much whether it is her service motion or mental capacity. And what do you mean "a badly out of shape Serena Williams?" That's over-exaggerating. The bottom line is Dems didn't have what it took in AO and she didn't have it at Wimby. It's all upstairs for her.
To begin with, you need to get your facts straight. It was not against Dementieva that Serena
came from behind and triumphed, but against Kusnetsova at the Austrailian Open. Also,
Dementieva is 28, not 27. Furthermore, while Dementieva has not won a slam, this does not
mean that she has not been successful; she has had a long and fruitful career, and it seems silly to me to measure her against other top players. Success is not always grabbing the proverbial brass
ring.
Hi Michael, Dementieva was leading Serena in the second set 3-0 before Serena bounced back for the win. That's what I was referring to, not the three set match with Kusnetsova. And in the world of freelance writing, there can be a significant lag time from when an article is written to when it is finally published. Elena was 27 when the piece was written. Of course she's had a successful career, that's why I've always defended her. But why shouldn't her accomplishments be measured against other top players when she has been a consistent top 10 player herself? Someone with her talent and staying power should win a Slam and I think she eventually will.