Top seed Amelie Mauresmo and No. 3 seed Elena Dementieva booked their slots in the quarterfinal round of the Kremlin Cup after staging dramatic comebacks to overcome their respective opponents, Elena Vesnina, 5-7, 6-3, 7-6 and Shahar Peer,4-6,7-6(4), 6-3.
After winning the first set,7-5, Vesnina could not carry the momentum she had to counter Mauresmo’s charge in the next two sets. With Vesnina making errors, Mauresmo finally won the match in two hours and twenty-two minutes. She moves into the quarterfinals against Nicole Vaidisova, in a repeat of their Roland Garros match.”Obviously it was a very tough match today, but I’m glad I got through it,” said Mauresmo.
“After my injury I wasn’t sure how I’d come out today but she really made me work for the win. I’d never played her before, but she was very good.”
“I feel good about myself for taking the No.1 player to a third set tie-break,” said Vesnina. “I learned so much about where my game is. I know I can play with the top players now. Hopefully next time the result will be different. Certainly, my next goal is to be in the Top 10; it takes a long time and a lot of hard work to get there, but I’m willing to do it.”
Dementieva meanwhile needed two hours and thirty-nine minutes in disposing Peer. Peer led Dementieva 5-2 in the first set but failed to close the set, allowing Dementieva to win two more games before finally winning the first set, 6-4. Dementieva stepped up her game, to lead Peer in the second set at 5-2. Peer clawed her way back, to lead Dementieva 6-5, but failed to win the match as Dementieva saved a match point, and eventually win the second set to push the match into a third set. Dementieva saw her 4-1 lead in the third set slip as Peer won two consecutive games, to narrow down Dementieva’s lead to 4-3. To the crowd’s delight, Dementieva won the next two games to book her place in the quarterfinals against Patty Schnyder.
“I was very close to losing, but the crowd helped me keep fighting,” Dementieva. “Even when I was down match point, I believed I could still win. I got off to a good start in the third and thankfully was able to finish it off.”
I was down 5-2 and came back to force a tie-break so I felt I was playing pretty good at that time; still, I lost it,” Peer said. “These things happen in tennis, things can change from one moment to the next. It just wasn’t my day today.”
