Thursday, January 15, 2009

In-form Dementieva hammers Serena

In-form Dementieva hammers Serena

AUSTRALIAN OPEN Venue: Melbourne Park Date: 19 January-1 FebruaryCoverage: BBC Red Button, BBC One & Two (including all Andy Murray matches), Radio 5 Live sports extra, BBC Sport website (Red Button coverage streamed on website throughout fortnight)


Elena Dementieva
Dementieva is the form player going into the Australian Open

Elena Dementieva continued her impressive preparation for the Australian Open by thrashing Serena Williams at the Sydney International.

The Russian beat world number two Williams 6-3 6-1 to set up a final against compatriot Dinara Safina, who saw off Ai Sugiyama 6-4 7-6 7-3).

In the men's event, top seed Novak Djokovic beat Mario Ancic 6-3 6-4 and the Serb meets Jarkko Nieminen next.

Richard Gasquet and David Nalbandian made it to the other semi-final.

Gasquet defeated fellow Frenchman Jeremy Chardy 6-2 7-6 (7-4), while Nalbandian beat Lleyton Hewitt 7-6 (7-3) 7-5.

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Nieminen progressed after Jo-Wilfried Tsonga was forced to pull out of their match with a back injury.

Dementieva, who won the title in Auckland last week, has now won nine consecutive matches.

She will head to Melbourne confident of improving on her record at the Australian Open, where she has not got past the fourth round in 10 attempts.

"I've done a lot of good work," said the Olympic champion. "I think all these big results from last year have really given me a lot confidence.

"I'm just playing with lots of confidence, which is great."

Williams, a three-time Australian Open champion, said: "I wasn't moving as I wanted to today. I gave it away more than anything.

"I made a lot of errors and made her look like a champ, really. I just pretty much gave her the match."

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