Elena lost in yet another dramatic and heart breaking match. Not only it was the best WTA match so far but also a record-setter ending later than any previous women’s match at the US Open.

The Aussie started way better not giving many chances to Elena. Serve and forehand were working really well, she converted two out of three break point opportunities and hit 14 winners to take the 1st set 6-3.
Everything changed in the 2nd set, though. Dementieva decided to show up and picked up her game while Sam kind of disappeared. The oddest thing is that she has one of the most powerful serves on the women’s game but still was unable to hold for the entire set. The Russian eventually took the 2nd set 6-2.

As the 3rd set started, Sam got broken once again and Elena found herself with a 3-0 lead. As naive as this might sound, I started to think she had an actual shot in this match and could win it. As expected, I couldn’t be more wrong. Stosur finally held serve and immediately after broke Elena (oh WTA, never change!) to get back on serve. On 4-3, Sam netted a forehand giving the Russian two break points. She managed to save the first one, but after a long rally Elena was finally able to break and got the chance to serve for the match. She had a match point but props to Sam that kept her cool and remained completely focused. The Australian showed some nerve never giving up and eventually broke back to even things up. Btw, I gotta say that their display of athleticism was unbelievable. Some of those rallies were pretty amazing.

When I thought nothing else could happen (Duh, wrong again), Sam broke Elena and this time she was the one serving for the match. Guess what happen? In perfect WTA style she got broken again but not before Dementieva had to save a match point. As it should be this match had to end with a tie break. Sam totally controlled it and after 2h38′ booked her place in the QF for the first time ever.

Just a random fact, but between them, Sam and Elena had 37 break-point chances.

Finally, I am happy for Sam, but at the same time I can’t help but feel awful for Elena. Well, especially for her mom. It was so heart breaking to see her looking helpless and sad while her daughter was struggling on court. The truth is, Elena is still the best player to never have won a Slam, but the saddest thing is that I honestly don’t think that will ever happen. And it sucks.

Next stop for Sam? Kimmy. I can’t wait for that match.

It’s just so wrong.

There seemed to be magic in the air last year when Elena pushed Serena to match point. Finally, she would capitalize on the opportunity. Maybe, just maybe, she’d win her first slam. No can do, she wouldn’t even win that match.

This year, with a favourable draw, she played well the whole way through. Finally she would get another crack at the Roland Garros final. Nope. Crap injury. And now that crap injury is keeping her from returning to Wimbledon, the very tournament where she was a down the line passing shot from the final a year ago. Oh, and it breaks a streak of attending 46 straight slams. Yeah, that definitely doesn’t make anyone feel better.

This match will go down in history as one of the biggest retirements in recent memory, but screw that. Something needs to be said about Franny first.

Maybe it’s the experience finally paying off, but Fran has been playing some of the most consistent and error free tennis I’ve ever seen come off of her racquet, and it’s paying off big time. She’s using the big forehand and especially the huge backhand to push her opponent back first, and then using the angles to finish points. The risks are calculated, not just an unnecessary flail. And bloody hell, it’s been fun to watch. She deserves this final entirely.

Poor, poor Elena (and her fans) though. Franny was a beatable opponent, and then who knew for the final. It really looked like it might be Elena’s turn. However, there were questions over health before this match even started, going back to the match against CanWoz, and it ended up costing her the match. I’m not even sure she would have continued even if she somehow pulled that tiebreak out. She’s now doubtful for Wimbledon, where of course she had that insanely epic match against Serena in the semis last year. Sad face.

It’s not secret that Elena drives me a little bit crazy. It’s not that I don’t like her. She has a fantastically thorough game and dates a hockey player. She just drives me mad. The queen of headcases, and the master of double faults, she always seems to tie herself up when she gets so close, and can be wildly inconsistent. At the same time, she’s had an insanely long and successful career, and has to be one of the greatest ladies in recent memory to not win a slam.

So it’s odd that this might be her slam to steal. Maybe not win, but she hasn’t made a slam final since 2004, and she’s got a pretty realistic shot there if she’s feeling healthy and up to it. For all the talk about the winner coming from the first quarter, or the top half, Elena gets the benefit of only having to play one of them. And she can beat Serena, JJ, or Sam on clay. Don’t count her out people, I’m not.

On the other hand, gotta feel bad for Nads. She had an absolutely money first set, then the leg started bothering her, became a nuisnace, and then eventually was such a problem that she could barely play. She only took 2 games in the last two sets; an unfitting end to a solid clay season for her.

Lena was forced to retire in the second set against Dani with a shoulder injury. Here’s hoping she’s really just exhausted or hurting from a full week of tennis in Paris, and then travelling. Tough to really know.

Add it to the pile, add it to the pile. It was the third retirement or walkover of the day and the 325781935th of the year.

Lena put the cap on a solid, solid week with a win over Lucie, 6-7, 6-1, 6-4. Also a great week for Lucie, who played a great match, and really forced Lena to play well. She made a lot of errors, but she hit a ton of winners too, and was taking the ball on the rise, and hitting some dirty inside out forehand winners. Shades of Rafa, as a lefty.

Elena, however, proved why she’s a consistently top 10 player, and was playing amazingly consistently (unimaginably consistently considering it’s Lena) and she was just too much on Lucie’s serving games and was able to get the break half way through the third set. Just a great match, errors, sure, but both players playing really aggressively was fun to watch, and there were tons of winners. So props to Lena for a great win.

Prepare the tractor beam! Shine my lightsaber!

More strange haps in Paris, as Elena knocked out Mel in three sets and got semi-revenge from the USO after dropping the first set in typical Lena fashion. As mentioned, she’ll take on Lucie tomorrow as her solid start to the season continues.

Really great to see Mel putting up solid results this week though. She’s done nothing since the USO, and had great wins against Sorana Banana, Patty, and Szavay and taking a set off Elena ain’t bad either. She’s seemed a bit like a fraud after knocking out JJ and the Russian slaughter in Flushing Meadows, but she’s clearly got her head and game back in control and looks poised to start making a push for the top 20, so good for. Admirable fight, that girl.

No upsets for these ladies, as they breezed through their opening round and kaboom, Lena/Justine in the SECOND round, which in the good ole days would easily be a quarterfinal match at the least.

I’m still not sure how I feel about no Justine seeding. Despite Captain Gilbert’s BRILLIANT idea to seed Kim second and Justine third, it would have made sense to give Justine 32nd seed, at least to keep something this insane from happening. Regardless, I’m guessing this will be a night match on Wednesday, meaning I am going to be getting next to no sleep Tuesday night and then somehow scraping through a day of 9 hours of class the next day. Ah, the season is officially here.

Smoking the ball all first set, and taking it rather handily, and then serving for the match in the second set, two points away from victory… and Aravane goes to 30-40, the Ghost of Nando’s Past makes an appearance, and double fault on break point. Then she drops the set. Then she drops the match, despite breaking back twice in the third. Same old crap. Aravane seriously needs to figure out that second serve, it’s entering into A-Rad territory, and there’s no way she’s going to be able to compete with big time ball-bashers when they can just smoke that second serve all day long. And of course she knew it, so she often tried to make up for it by going for the second serve… and double faulting. Whatevs. First ever Sydney final for Serena.

Her opponent in the final will be defending champ Elena, who has looked pretty solid this week from the little I’ve seen. What’s up with Vika though? I didn’t see it, but not much of a scoreline at 6-3, 6-1. Love that the WTA home site is starting to call Serena/Lena a rivalry. Of course. It’s the new Federer/Nadal! Anyway, I saw a bit of Vika this week, and she did not look consistent at all. I was figuring, like Nando, she’d be able to come out of the gates flying just like last year. Remains to be the case, though obviously a semifinal berth is pretty solid.

If you’re curious, Lena leads the head to head 4-3. Might not be a bad final to catch. It will be at 7:30pm local time.

Whatever, Kohlswhatever. Russia won 2-1, but they needed a win from Igor and the mixed dubs team, after a complete thrashing of Lena to the hands of Sabine. And since I watched that, that’s what I’m going to talk about. (Not to mention, in the first couple of games of the doubles, all they did was laugh at each other. So its not like it was a super competitive, heart breaking loss or something).

SRSLY THOUGH. Girl’s got skills. Sabine came out crushing the ball, blasting huge winners, and more or less running Lena off the court after, yes, she had troubles getting serves into the service box. But BLOODY HELL, Beanie Baby (new Sabine nickname alert!) really needs to tame her wildness. In the sense that she takes huge cuts at certain balls that she just needs to get over the net. In this sense, it would be easy to see how someone putting less pace on the ball, or mixing it up more, could cause Ms. Licky some serious problems. Its not to say she needs pace to hit big, or is counterpunching or something, she fired some ridiculous 175km/h winner in the second set. She’s just sometimes reaching or over doing it, trying to blast everything, and balls end up into the net or nowhere near to a line, when it really wasn’t necessary. Regardless, when you think power in the women’s game, you usually think “the Sisters and maybe a few of the Russians”, but you can definitely add the ball crushing German to the list. If you haven’t seen her play yet, get on that shit.

And team GRRRREAT BRITAIN won! And I saw like two seconds of it, but this may be the cutest dubs team evar. Kind of get the feeling Muzz is taking on the big brother role with L-Rob who is only 15?! I for some reason thought she was like 17 or something. She managed to take the first set off of Slava Shvedova, and then only managed to take 3 games over the next two sets. Muzz won easily, and then they wrapped it up in the dubs. And damn can Laura whack a ball, considering her age. Hurry up and get old, would ya?