SYDNEY, Australia - Russia's Elena Dementieva won her second Sony Ericsson WTA Tour title in as many weeks on Friday night, rallying past countrywoman Dinara Safina in a see-saw final, 63 26 61.
Although Safina came into the match with a 5-4 lead in the pair's head-to-head, all five of her wins had come on clay or grass, while Dementieva's wins all came on hardcourt - Sydney's surface of choice. Although she seemed out of sorts in the middle set, the 27-year-old Dementieva regrouped for the third and coasted to a three set victory.
"After the first I knew I had to start going for my shots more, and I started to do it - I won pretty comfortably in the second set," Safina said. "In the third set I completely went away from my game. I just gave her 3-0. I wasn't aggressive enough, and things were pretty bad from my side. But she played really well."
"Instead of continuing to play very aggressively like I did in the first set, I was waiting for her mistakes to come, and that was not a good idea," commented Dementieva on the second set. "I was able to change the situation in the third set somehow; that break in the beginning of the set really helped me."
Form for the final was perhaps hinted at by the Russians' semifinal performances: while No.2 seed Safina struggled past an unseeded Ai Sugiyama, 64 76(3), No.3 seed Dementieva absolutely crushed top seed Serena Williams, 63 61, her third straight win over her (she is just the fifth player ever to achieve that feat, after Arantxa Sánchez-Vicario, Venus Williams, Jennifer Capriati and Justine Henin).
Dementieva now has a 10-0 record this season, having gone 5-0 to win the ASB Classic in Auckland last week and then 5-0 to win the Medibank International in Sydney this week. The world No.4's title run was made sweeter because her last two wins came over two of the three players ranked above her - Williams is No.2, Safina is No.3. World No.1 Jelena Jankovic did not compete in Sydney.
"I was hoping for a good start to the year, but I couldn't imagine I was going to win two titles," Dementieva added. "I practiced hard and had good preparation, but so did everyone else. I was just so focused right away, even after the long break. It's great to have all of these matches going into the Australian Open."
"Of course I can only take the positives - last year I lost first round here and this year I reached the final," Safina added. "I played well in the second set too. I know my game is there. I'm looking forward to doing the best I can next week - that's one of the biggest things I play for, the Grand Slams."
Most of the headlines throughout the week were made by Williams, who survived two nail-biters en route to the semifinals. The 27-year-old American saved four match points to beat Samantha Stosur in the first round and then saved another three to get past Caroline Wozniacki in the quarterfinals. She denied fatigue being a major contributor in her straight set loss to Dementieva on Thursday afternoon.
Sugiyama came through a section where the seeds - No.4 seed Vera Zvonareva and No.5 seed Svetlana Kuznetsova - were forced out due to illness and injury, respectively. She notched wins over Jill Craybas and Anabel Medina Garrigues.
The doubles final saw Hsieh Su-Wei and Peng Shuai rout Nathalie Dechy and Casey Dellacqua, 60 61. It was their second title together, after winning Bali last fall; Hsieh now has five Tour doubles titles to her name while Peng has four.
For a second consecutive week, co-doubles world No.1s Cara Black and Liezel Huber lost prior to the final round they're so used to being in, falling to Dechy and Dellacqua in a match tie-break in the semifinals on Thursday.
See photos in the Photo Gallery presented by Dubai Duty Free.
