Elena Dementieva defeats Daniela Hantuchova at US Open
Elena Dementieva has stretched her career win-loss record against Daniela Hantuchova to 12-4, after securing a 7-5, 6-2 victory over the world No. 26 to move through to the fourth round of the US Open.
Dementieva won 10 of the last 12 games of the match, making amends for a sloppy first set in which she made 16 unforced errors with a much tidier performance in the second, where she made just four of them.
In a first set of wildly swinging momentum, and in which the players produced a total of 36 unforced errors between them, it was Dementieva who opened with a break of serve. It wasn’t long before Hantuchova, who commenced the match with a heavily strapped right thigh, however, had secured the break-back to level the scores at 2-2 in the first set.
It was to be the second of five straight games for Hantuchova, as she matched, and bettered, the 12th seed in their baseline exchanges to turn the match on its head.
Dementieva stopped the rot by holding serve in the eighth, and then clawing back the break as the Slovakian double-faulted at the crucial moment to get the set back on serve.
It was then Hantuchova’s 17th unforced error – Dementieva had already made 16 of her own – that handed the Russian her fourth straight game and the chance for the serve for the set, and with momentum on her side it was a task which the world No. 12 duly accomplished.
In a beginning to the second set that mirrored the first, Dementieva again opened with a break, but this time Hantuchova returned the favour immediately to end a five game losing streak of her own.
The third game again went the receiver’s way before Dementieva clung on to hold serve to before breaking again to take a 4-1 lead in the second set as her opponent imploded on the other end of the court.
While Hantuchova would go on to hold serve once more, there were to be no more twists in the tale as Dementieva held serve to close out the match after 90 minutes on court.
Dementieva will now play fifth seed Sam Stosur in the fourth round, after the Australian won her third round match against Italy’s Sara Errani 6-2, 6-3 on Louis Armstrong court today.
Before this year, Stosur had not progressed beyond the second round at Flushing Meadows, but the French Open runner-up is now just one win from booking a place in the quarter-finals.
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