Dementieva Advanced by First Aces
Defending champion and Olympic gold medalist Elena Dementieva successfully started her Kremlin Cup campaign yesterday, October 8, 2009. Elena advanced to the quarterfinal after defeating Katarina Srebotnik. Svetlana Kuznetsova progressed to the next round as well. In the men’s section, Russia’s Igor Kunitsyn saw off compatriot Mikhail Kukushkin and Teimuraz Gabashvili sprang a real surprise by prevailing over Mikhail Youzhny. As to Marat Safin, he secured the 400th victory Tuesday night.
One of the first four seeds, Elena Dementieva joined the competition in the second round. The beginning wasn’t easy for the Russian, who had to overcome quite a number of serious difficulties in the match vs. Katarina Srebotnik. According to Dementieva, Srebotnik is traditionally inconvenient for her, they meet quite often and the matches have always been very tough.
The general inconvenience of Srebotnik notwithstanding, Dementieva finally prevailed over her. She took the first set (6-3) but lost the second one (4-6) to book a decider, which she closed by two aces (7-6 (7-2)).
Another frontrunner of the Kremlin Cup, Russia’s Svetlana Kuznetsova is through to the next round as well. Her match vs Sara Errani looked like two different matches. The ladies were relatively equal in the first set, but Kuznetsova crushed Errani in the second one.
Meanwhile, Russia’s Anna Chakvetadze was beaten by Caroline Wozniacki. The latter has progressed from the 61st to the 16th rating this year. But the shocking casualty of the tournament was Serbia’s Ana Ivanovic, who yielded to Dominika Cibulkova (3-6 6-2 7-6) in Moscow.
The surprise of the men’s event was the first-round loss of Mikhail Youzhny to fellow Russian Teimuraz Gabashvili in the deciding tie-break.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Oct. 09, 2008
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