Elena Dementieva in French Open 2008

If you look at the top seeded players of Women’s tennis then you may be surprised to see the out of top seven players of WTA ranking are now from Russia. No doubt, Russian girls are dominating women’s tennis at this moment in the world. In the top ten, Elena Dementieva is the least seeded Russian girl, securing the 7^th place rank in WTA ranking. Though Dementieva played two grand slam finals already, first in French Open 2004, then in US Open 2004, she is yet to experience her first ever grand slam title in her career. The 26 year old Russian tennis star is now going to take place another grand slam tournament, French Open 2008, due to start from 25 May 2008.

Elena Dementieva reached the fourth round of Australian Open 2008, the first grand slam tournament of the year. However, she lost to the eventual champion, fellow Russian Maria Sharapova 6–2, 6–0. So, it is true that defeating Sharapova, the current world no. 1 is not an easy task, but what hurt me during Australian Open 2008 was that Dementieva even could not create any competition in the match. For a top ranked player, I think, that was not something inspirational. However, Dementieva won Barclays Dubai Tennis Championships defeating Svetlana Kuznetsova, the then second seed, in the final.

To be honest, the recent performance of Elena Dementieva is pretty much satisfactory as she reached the final of recently concluded German Open, defeating fourth seed Jelena Jankovic in the quarter final, second-seeded Ivanovic in the semifinals, before losing to thirteen seed Dinara Safina in the final. Elena Dementieva finished 11^th last year, which she developed to reach 7^th now, mostly because of her consistent performance on WTA tours so far this year. So, I think, Elena Dementieva has enough to take inspiration from her recent performance and she could emerge as one of the big challenges for French Open 2008 title.