Elena Dementieva defeats Denisa Chladkova in two.

In the second time they meet Dementieva turned out better in her rallies and making more direct points on service returns. Chladkova could not take advantage of Dementieva’s feeble serves.

Right from the start Dementieva knew she had to break her opponents serve, the previous match showed she cant rely on her own serve. On deuce Chladkova hits a double fault and Dementieva takes advantage for the first time. Chladkova comes back to deuce and still takes her service game.

After the Russian wins her first service game she now takes away the service from the Czech. Dementieva could not hold the lead and is broken herself on 15-40 when she hits a ball wide.

Again she knew she has to break Chladkova to have a chance in this match. At 15-40 she hits a running forehand winner to break for 3-2. Due to lack of a good service Chladkova managed to break back for 3 all.

Until 5 all both players hold serve and play winners to hold on to their service games. Dementieva starts to hit services faster then 120 Km, she even reaches the 140’s at one point but she fails to score point with those services. Many points are won on serves between 105 and 117 Km. Chladkova does not find a way to attack those serves. As soon as the rallies are on the way Dementieva turns out to be the much better player and wins her games more easy.

In the 11th game Dementieva breaks Chladkova’s serve with a return winner, two unforced errors by Chladkova and another return winner on Chladkova’s second serve.

Leading 6-5 Dementieva worked on holding her serve. On a 148 Km. Service Chladkova hits an unforced error. Dementieva hits a winner for 30-0. Chladkova again hits an error and the Russian hits a winner for the first set, 7-5.

In the second set Dementieva breaks Chladkova’s serve immediately and is leading 3-1. Chladkova comes back breaking Dementieva in the 6th game. Chladkova’s attacks pay off with two winners and Dementieva starts to hit unforced errors as well. Chladkova attacks again and breaks the Russian serve.

In the 9th game Dementieva is hitting her return winners again she breaks and leads 5-4, in the last game of the match she breaks Chladkova’s resistance and wins her game 40-0 and the match 7-5, 6-4 in 1 hour and 24 minutes.

Dementieva said she was satisfied with the way she played. As she didn’t practice on centre court she had to adjust to the lights first that’s why her first match was a bit tougher than this one.

Although she understands that her service is not the best on the tour she is not worried about it. As long as she is winning her matches she is ok with it. She explained that it was a mental thing most of the time. “In the beginning of the match I start to get nervous that leads to a bad serve but the second serves are getting better now”.  She also said that she always slices the services, “that doesn’t have to be a bad thing, many players slice their serves”.

Looking back at the Grand Slam finals she played this year she said that she was just too nervous to play good. Now that she knows how that works she will do better next time. “I am not disappointed about losing those two finals, it was a great experience and I played the best I could”.

She also saw Kim Clijsters play and she said that she was playing good and moving well. But she still has to win another match before meeting Kim in the final. “I take on match at a time” she said about looking ahead towards a final against the local hero.