Elena Dementieva retires from tennis
Elena Dementieva has retired from tennis following her loss to Francesca Schiavone at the WTA Tour Championships.
The 29-year-old announced her decision in an emotional ceremony on court in Doha after the 6-4, 6-2 defeat, ending her career with an Olympic gold medal at Beijing in 2008, and 16 WTA titles.
Dementieva was also a dual Grand Slam singles finalist, but fell short of winning a major title and was widely regarded as the best player on the WTA Tour who had not tasted the ultimate success at the Slams.
The Russian bows out as the world No. 9, having ended the season ranked inside the top-20 every year since 2000. It was a distinguished career built on athleticism and a strong offensive game that took her into the tennis elite and one that was accomplished despite the awkward serve that was the one persistent c***k in her armour.
While Dementieva was in the enviable position of being able to choose when to put her racquet in the bag for the final time, she wasn’t, however, able to end it with a win in a match where Schiavone too had pride on the line.
Though this was a dead-rubber round-robin match, with the semi-finalists already decided prior to today’s matches and this pair not among them, 30-year-old Schiavone had waited her entire career to reach the season-ending tournament and leaving Doha without a win to her name mustn’t have been a particularly palatable outcome.
That may have been so, but it was Dementieva (with more to play for than most observers would have realised) who took the early advantage with the first break of the opening set, before three straight games (including two breaks) gave the determined Italian a 4-2 lead.
But as both players struggled to settle into a consistent rhythm, Dementieva broke again in the next game to get proceedings back on serve.
It was Schiavone, who had 10 break point chances for the set, who secured what would be the third and final break of the set, closing it out when the Russian set a forehand sailing over the baseline.
After heading off court for an extended break between sets, Dementieva re-emerged seemingly determined to make a contest of the match, just as she had done when coming from a set behind to beat Samantha Stosur in her second round-robin match.
As it turns out, that was to be the last win of her career.
Schiavone though was equally determined that she was going to make a winning farewell to Doha and the veteran quickly skipped away to a 5-1 lead and a chance to serve for the set.
Dementieva wasn’t done yet though, as she saved match point with some deft touches to produce a winning dropshot, before going on to break the Schiavone serve.
The resistance, however, was shortlived as the world No. 6 broke Dementieva to love the next game to secure the match 6-4, 6-2 and finish her season on a winning note, and, as it turns out, end Dementieva’s career on a losing one.
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