Dementieva into the next round.

By Etienne Stekelenburg
September 30 2004

Russian No. 1 seed Elena Dementieva is through to the next round of the Gaz de France Stars at Hasselt after defeating Michaela Pastikova of the Czech Republic. The cactus collector from Moscow needs two sets 6-4, 6-2 in 1 hour and 25 minutes.

As usual Dementieva’s serves were very sloppy. She says she and her coach to practice a lot to improve the serve but she explained it's mainly a mental thing that has to be worked on.

If her serve was as good as the other top 10 players she would have won 6-0, 6-1 tonight. Pastikova could not win her serves either but mainly because Dementieva was just too good in rallies and hitting more winners and hitting fewer errors.

Dementieva lost most of the points through double faults and weak second attempts to get the ball in play. She could make up for her errors in winning the points from Pastikova who had a better serve but could not take up a real fight during the rallies and answering Dementieva’s returns.

Next up for Dementieva is Denisa Chladkova of the Czech Republic who defeated 6th seed Silvia Farina Elia of Italy yesterday.

Scheduled for Friday are:

Starting at 12.00 on Centre Court.

Eva Birnerova/Libuse Prusova vs. Jennifer Russel/Mara Santangelo

Starting at 2.00 PM Elena Dementieva vs. Denisa Chladkova

Followed by

Maria Elena Camerin vs. Virginia Ruano Pascual.

Starting at 7.00 PM

Magdalena Maleeva vs. Kim Clijsters

Followed by

Francesca Schiavone vs. Elena Bovina.