Sun-Sentinel Com

Dementieva will play Kuznetsova for women’s U.S. Open title

By Charles Bricker
Staff Writer
Posted September 11 2004

NEW YORK — This would be the final run, the final stretch and the
final futile wave of the racket by Jennifer Capriati, the last Yank
in the tank at the U.S. Open.

Elena Dementieva’s backhand, smoothly struck to the left corner on the
second match point, sped through a brisk wind past America’s hard-luck
queen of tennis, then probably sent half of Russia into euphoria
while simultaneously shipping CBS Sports deeper into depression.

With Lindsay Davenport gimping out against Svetlana Kuznetsova earlier
on this bright and breezy Friday, and with Capriati sent home once
again one day early, the Open is without an American in the final
for the first time since 1988.

The words of former USTA President Harry Marmion, uttered in 1997
when he inaugurated a multimillion-dollar program to revitalize the
junior tennis program, came echoing out of the past:

“I’m not looking forward to the day, four or five years from now,
when we have an Armenian and a Lithuanian in the U.S. Open final,”
Marmion said.

Well, it’s two Russians in the women’s championship match and just
about anyone but an American on the men’s side, and, of all the
surviving suspects, no one deserves this more than Dementieva, who
has fought through an injury to her left leg and the horrors of one of
the worst serves in tennis to reach her second major final of the year.

Dementieva defeated Capriati 6-0, 2-6, 7-6 (5) after the powerfully
built smaller Kuznetsova took advantage of Davenport’s groin injury
to win 1-6, 6-2, 6-4. Capriati had lost the first nine points and
seven games before she seemed to get back in control, but faded late
in the final set.

The men play their semifinals today with one Swiss (Roger Federer),
one Brit (Tim Henman), one Aussie (Lleyton Hewitt) and one surprising
Swede (Joachim Johansson). That’s great for international relations,
but it’s not going to pump up the television ratings today and Sunday.

Dementieva, whose strong lower body is a big key to her destructive
ground strokes, can be edgy on court. But this time, she vowed, she
won’t go into the Open final with the nerves that doomed her against
countrywoman Anastasia Myskina at the French Open.

“At the end of the game today, I was so tired it was no place for
nerves,” she said. “I was always thinking about every point. I wasn’t
nervous at all. Why should I? It’s been a great tournament for me
so far.

“It was not easy to play against this crowd. They were laughing at
my serve, so I was kind of relaxed a little. I was into the game all
the time.”

She hit 67 doubles faults at the French, at one point in the final
screaming, “I hate my serve.” This time, Capriati hated her serve,
even when Dementieva puffed it in at 59 or 63 mph because the slower
the ball, the more it wiggled and dived in the wind.

“You’re off-balance basically all the time,” said Capriati, who never
considered coming in, chipping the serve back down the middle and
racing to the net behind her returns.

“I mean, it’s not my game to chip and charge,” she explained. “It’s
kind of difficult on the forehand, kind of the way she was hitting it,
to do that.”

In fact, Capriati’s second serve was much more vulnerable. In the
decisive set, Dementieva won 10 of the 11 second serve points on
return while Capriati was able to score on 13 of 19.

But it was Dementieva’s persistence in coming to net that made the
difference. She was at net 11 times in the first two sets, 33 in the
final set, and she converted 23 of those points.

“It was very difficult to play with the wind today, so I as trying
to stay close to the ball and go to the net was the only way I could
win this match,” she said. “Especially from one side, when you play
against the wind. There is no other choice to win the point. You have
to go to the net.”

If Capriati had done the same, this match might have turned out
differently. After she broke Dementieva to go up 2-1 in the third,
she made a few sweeping gestures with her hands, as if to say, “Yes,
like that. Get to the net!” But she never tried to force the play
off Dementieva’s weak second serves.

Davenport was equally despondent after her defeat. She had won 22
matches in a row coming into this semifinal and somehow tweaked her
left groin or hip flexor in an easy morning warmup. It was fine while
she slashed through the first set.

But after being broken at 2-1 in the second set after holding 33 games
in a row dating back to the second round, Davenport’s body language
changed. “Somewhere along the line, I believe around 4-2, my leg got
worse. I knew I was at a disadvantage and it was an uphill battle.”

She was retaped after the second set and was up 4-3 in the third,
but she could no longer run and was depending on hitting winning
serves. Playing smartly, Kuznetsova broke her with a backhand winner,
then ran out the match at love with a 103 mph ace.

A few hours later, the last American could have pulled down the
flag. Maybe the famed Russian Tea Room will reopen this weekend.

Copyright © 2004, South Florida Sun-Sentinel