Elena Dementieva: Class act or underachiever?

Players Under the Microscope / Sean Calvert / 04 November 2010 / 2 Comments

Elena Dementieva - could have done better

"You need the objective viewpoint of an unrelated observer in any sport and I feel that her over reliance on Vera proved to be Dementieva’s undoing in the end."

Sean Calvert considers the career of a likable Russian who ultimately failed on the biggest stages. But why?

The announcement last week that Elena Dementieva is to retire with immediate effect has had the scribes falling over themselves to dish out gushing praise about the Russian's career, but hang on a minute - where were the majors?

The fact that most of the career obituaries concentrated mainly on Dementieva's perceived wonderful personality and character, which I have no reason to doubt, having met her just the once, and less about her actual achievements tells the story though.

Zero Slam wins and just two Slam finals in 14 years on tour is a poor return for the former world number three, whose main career success appears to be her Olympic title in 2008.

OK, so it's fantastic to be an Olympic champion and more so for a nation with a proud Olympic tradition such as Russia, but Nicolas Massu is an Olympic singles champion and I doubt people will be so keen to wax lyrical about the Chilean when he retires.

Most observers when they hear the name Dementieva will recall the two shocking Slam final displays in Paris and New York in 2004 when just about anyone with a racquet could have turned up and defeated her.

The opposition was hardly fearsome either. She wasn't blown away by a Williams or peak form Henin or Hingis. No, Anastasia Myskina and Sveta Kuznetsova were the mighty victors on those occasions of painful viewing.

Her inconsistent performances are best summed up by compatriot Myskina, who once told tennis reporter Matt Cronin: "You never know which Elena will show up, the great one or the one who isn't there."

She certainly wasn't there in those 2004 finals and although the pressure of the occasion can get to anyone - just ask another Russian Dinara Safina - it was often Dementieva's awful serve that let her down.

Her service action always looked like it was about to break down, despite the fact that she changed it numerous times, and there were stages in her matches when you wanted someone to walk on court with the white towel in their hand and call off the contest.

It was that bad, although it made myself and doubtless many other seasoned Elena watchers a good deal of profit from laying her at around the [1.07] mark on a regular basis.

So, we have a dodgy serve and a temperament with a propensity to fold under pressure, but there's another big reason in my view why Dementieva failed to win a Slam and that, of course, is her mother.

Anyone who's seen more than one of her matches will recall the anguished looks to her mother, Vera, in the crowd as if to say: 'what do I do now?' in a similar fashion to Andy Murray, but without the anger.

I'm not a big fan of parents as coaches, a view which Murray himself concurred with when it was mooted that Judy Murray might step into the breach for the Scot recently and Donald Young's stubborn resistance to an independent coach hasn't exactly helped his development either. You need the objective viewpoint of an unrelated observer in any sport and I feel that her over reliance on Vera proved to be Dementieva's undoing in the end.

She had a lot of gifts, such as speed, poise, athleticism and the ability to hit a clean, hard ball, but the lack of a plan-b when a change-up was required and that awful serve meant that she ended up without a Slam and I felt that her talent went largely unfulfilled at the very top level as a consequence.

Elena's fitness was never an issue, as her 46 Slams on the bounce will testify to, until a calf injury put her out of Wimbledon this year, but I feel she should have done better in the majors.

Her over 50 percent loss record in the Australian Open, where she just once passed the fourth round in 12 tries can be used as an example of this underachievement.

A dual winner in similar conditions in Sydney, it was another Dementieva riddle as to her failure to compete in Melbourne and in the end, that enigmatic side to her game summed her up - a very decent career, but on the whole could have done better.

Comments (2)

1. mark charles | 28 November 2010

   two grand slam runner ups seven grand slam semis two olympic medals one gold one silver 16 tour titles 16 runner up in finals 10 years in the top 20 players 7 in the top ten nearly 15 million dollars in prize money won all 3 rubbers in the fed cup victory of 2005 all adds up to a pretty good career id say how dare you compare massu with dementieva whats he done outside the olypmics as for your take on her career your a disgrace.

2. mark charles | 28 November 2010

   by the way dementieva has a 68 percent win average at the aussie open where she reached the semi finals, and over 70 percent win loss average in the other slams.