The second round meeting between Justine Henin and Elena Dementieva more than lived up to its billing as the most-anticipated match thus far of the 2010 Australian Open.
After nearly three hours of dazzling play, Henin is through to the third round in Melbourne after beating the world number five player in two sets 7-5, 7-6(6).
If tennis were a ballet, these two women would be prima donna ballerinas. The footwork on display during tonight’s match was textbook quality as they danced their way across the court. Henin’s signature backhand was brilliantly matched by Dementieva’s foot speed and court coverage. In the end, though, Henin emerged dominant, signaling that she is once again a force to be reckoned with on the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour.
Henin battled to save two set points in the opening set before taking the early 7-5 lead. Dementieva played nearly perfect tennis in the second set to force a tiebreak, but it still was not good enough as the reigning Olympic gold medalist suffered yet another heartbreaking Grand Slam defeat.
Justine Henin’s victory today moves her one step closer toward a potential quarterfinal showdown with countrywoman Kim Clijsters. Henin will play Russian Alisa Kleybanova in the third round.
Oh, I so wish I could have been at that match, just the description sounds fantastic. The only downside about it is that they met so early in the tournament. I think the organizers should have given Justine a protected ranking. For such a great player it is quite disrespectful not to take that into account and not give her a seed. But in the end of the day it’s just too bad for them, they’ve lost a ton of money and gave away a great show for a discount price, so in fact, the paying public can be just immensely graceful :-)
Pretty disappointed with Dementieva’s performance. She actually could have won the match if her serve held up better and her return games were more aggressive. There were so many times she could have ripped for a winner and gone down the line, instead, she always hit the ball towards the middle of the court and let Henin dictate. Justine’s serve really needs to improve if she wants a shot at the Australian Open title. I was pretty impressed though w/ her ground game and net play. On a side note, as the year progresses, I hope Justine relies less on looking at her coach after every point. Tennis is after all an individual sport and Justine is a 7 major time champion so she should be able to solve all the problems on the court on her own instead of looking at her coach for counsel.