Dementieva Says So Many Russians, but Clijsters Says One-Dimensional

Posted on March 16, 2005

The new-era Russian dominance of the WTA Tour was on full display Tuesday at the WTA stop in Indian Wells where six of the eight matches played contained Russian competitors.

Elena Dementieva, a three-set winner Tuesday over Tatiana Golvin, reached two slam finals last year and says the Russian surge is so great from the junior level it is hard to keep track.

“I feel like it's really amazing how many Russians we have for the moment on the tour,” Dementieva said. “A lot of young players are coming up. Some of the players I don't really know. I don't know even their names. They are so young. They are like 15 or 16 years old or even younger.”

The No. 4-seeded was one of six Russians in action on Tuesday alone, along with No. 3 Maria Sharapova, No. 5 Svetlana Kuznetsova, No. 6 Nadia Petrova, No. 30 Elena Linetskaya who ousted Amelie Mauresmo earlier in the week, and qualifier Maria Kirilenko.

Dementieva lost in the French and US Open finals last week, while Sharapova won Wimbledon and Kuznetsova the US Open.

Dementieva says the 2004 effort by the Russians will be hard to follow up, especially with the Williams sisters and the Belgians healthy again, but hard work and an eye on the No. 1 ranking remains the key.

“We’re all working hard, we know what we want. I think everyone wants to be No. 1,” Dementieva said. “So that's the huge motivation which, you know, makes us work a lot. It's very good to have this kind of competition between all of us because I feel like I want to improve my game myself, you know, I want to be the best one.”

France’s Mary Pierce earlier in the week said the slew of young up-and-comers will need to improve their net game to compete with the Top 10 players. Kim Clijsters concurs that many of the up-and-comers are one-dimensional in deploying their ground games and reacting to anything other than a topspin drive.

“A lot of the girls, especially now a lot of the Russian girls and the younger girls, you know, they all sort of hit the same pace,” Clijsters said. “You know, they hit the ball, and they're very steady. They don't miss a lot of balls. But once they get, you know, a player in front of them who can mix it up and loop up a few balls and throw in some slices, you know, they struggle.”