TORONTO, Canada - Elena Dementieva capped one of the best weeks of her career on Sunday, beating Maria Sharapova for her 14th Sony Ericsson WTA Tour singles title at the Rogers Cup. 
Toronto: Final Highlights
Dementieva, the No.4 seed at the $2-million, Premier-level stop, had a number of close encounters early on in the week, including back-to-back three-setters against Shahar Peer and Samantha Stosur in the round of 16 and quarters. But after falling behind 5-3 in the first set of her semifinal match against Serena Williams she kicked it up a notch, rolling to victory over the No.2 seed, 76(2) 61, revenge for a paper-thin loss at Wimbledon, and then hanging tough against Sharapova in the final, beating her countrywoman for just the third time in 11 meetings, 64 63. Shot of the Day: Elena Dementieva
"I just feel I played a huge day. I was fighting for every point, so many long rallies," Dementieva said. "It was not the way I like to play - it was a more defensive game today - but against her, it's very hard to be aggressive because she puts a lot of pressure on the first two shots, so you need to work on defense before you have your chances to go for your shots."
Dementieva was playing her fourth final of the year, having won back-to-back titles in the first two weeks of the season at Auckland and Sydney but falling in the final of Paris [Indoors] to Amélie Mauresmo, right after the Australian Open. She is now 14-14 lifetime in Sony Ericsson WTA Tour singles finals.
Dementieva also picked up her 50th match win of the season, something only Dinara Safina and Caroline Wozniacki can lay claim to so far in 2009. Additionally, a good omen for Dementieva is that the last three winners in Toronto - Justine Henin in 2003, Kim Clijsters in 2005 and again Henin in 2007 - have all gone on to win the US Open. Dementieva has never won a major.
Sharapova came into Toronto unseeded but certainly played like a world-beater, upsetting No.10 seed Nadia Petrova, No.7 seed Vera Zvonareva and No.14 seed Agnieszka Radwanska en route to the semifinals, all in straight sets. Saturday night she rallied from 3-1 down in the third to win an all-unseeded battle with another giant-killer, Alisa Kleybanova, before her run ended Sunday. She was playing her first final since returning from the Tour in May after a nine month injury lay-off; she is now 19-8 lifetime in singles finals on the Tour.
"Elena is a grinder and gets a lot of balls back, so the most important thing against her is execution. I just wasn't able to do that," said Sharapova, who had 48 unforced errors to just 19 winners in the match. "I wasn't as fresh as I was in the first round, but it was the final, and you can't really think about it.
"It was a really great week for me, though. Playing six matches was great leading up to the US Open. This was really good preparation."
While Dementieva and Serena Williams both made their projected semifinal spots, the other members of the Top 4 were ousted in their opening matches earlier in the week, with world No.1 Dinara Safina losing out to Aravane Rezai and world No.3 Venus Williams falling to Kateryna Bondarenko.
The doubles final saw Nuria Llagostera Vives and María José Martínez Sánchez win their fifth Tour title of the year together, rallying from 62 30 down and saving a match point down 9-8 in the match tie-break to upset Samantha Stosur and Rennae Stubbs, 26 75 119. Llagostera Vives and Martínez Sánchez had won four International-level clay court titles earlier this year, so Toronto marks their first Premier-level title, and on hardcourts. They are now tied with Cara Black and Liezel Huber for most titles this year; Black and Huber lost to Stosur and Stubbs in the semifinals.
