Player of the week: Elena Dementieva

As last year, Elena Dementieva has started the season in the best possible way winning the first Premier event of the season at Sydney.


After a straight sets victory over dangerous Italian Francesca Schiavone in the first round, 5th seed Dementieva found bigger opposition on former Top-5 Daniela Hantuchova, who was the only player who managed to take a set from Dementieva during the whole week. But once in the quarters, Dementieva started to play her best tennis to consecutively defeat WTA #2 Dinara Safina in the quarter-final, WTA #7 Victoria Azarenka in the semifinal and WTA #1 Serena Williams in the final, dropping no more than 5 games on each match.


Now she will try to confirm her good moment in the Australian Open, although it will not be easy as she will meet former WTA #1 Justine Henin in the 2nd round and US Open champion Kim Clijsters in a potential quarter-final match-up.