Elena Vesnina may or may not have slept peacefully on Friday night If she did it was for two reasons, a mixture of exhaustion after two of the tournament's longest matches and contentment at making her first WTA singles final.
Her next battle will take place against her countrywoman Elena Dementieva, and the younger Vesnina appears heavily out-gunned.
Dementieva is the top seed, world No 4, winner of 11 WTA titles and reigning Olympic singles champion.
She has breezed past four opponents in straight sets, spending over two hours less on court in total than Vesnina. Vesnina has come through her consecutive three-setters smiling, but needed ice packs on her hamstrings during the long semifinal against Anne Keothavong.
Vesnina was previously known as a doubles specialist. So far in the ASB Classic she tops the statistics in aces but is also near the very top in double faults. She has come through a few nervous moments in the tournament when her serve put her under pressure, and often needed errors from opponents to save her when her own groundstrokes weren't heavy enough.
Sometimes, even, it seemed like she needed a partner at net for the put-away volley.
Having the underdog tag sewn up, Vesnina can finally relax and her obvious talent may flow unchecked.
“She’s (Dementieva) a really good player, she plays unbelievable and it will be a very tough match,” said Vesnina.
It's a tall order, but Auckland's newest darling will have the crowd right behind her at the merest sniff of an upset... even if she takes a set off the favourite, like she did on grass in Holland in 2006.
This final featuring two Russians is the 17th such in the history of the WTA Tour. Curiously, Dementieva has played in no less than eight of the previous 16.
If Dementieva was sleeping anything other than peacefully last night, it's unlikely to have been from the thought of a massive upset. She doesn't seem the nervous type.
No comments:
Post a Comment