Gold for Dementieva and Williams Sisters

The more astonishing thing was not that Russian women captured the gold, silver and bronze medals in tennis singles at the Olympics. After all, six of the top 11 players in the world are Russian.
 
The surprise was that none of the medalists was named Maria Sharapova or Svetlana Kuznetsova, the country’s two top-five players with Grand Slam victories to their credit.
 
Even with Sharapova out with an injury, and Kuznetsova dismissed in the first round, the Russians kept coming until there was no one left to beat. They used the Olympics to announce plans to further crowd the top of the women’s game.
 
“It’s a huge moment for Russia,” said Elena Dementieva, who won the gold medal over the hottest player in the game, Dinara Safina, 3-6, 7-5, 6-3. “I know we were expecting and planning some medals from our team. But I don’t think anyone could expect three medals.”
 
But there they were, three women in matching red-and-white warm-up suits, listening to a familiar national anthem as medals hung from their necks and three identical flags were raised slowly at Center Court of the Olympic Green Tennis Center.
 
Dementieva stood tallest in the middle, beaming between Safina and Vera Zvonareva, who beat China’s Li Na in the bronze-medal match, 6-0, 7-5.
 
Russia became the first country to sweep the medals in any Olympic tennis event since Britain in 1908, although tennis was off the program between 1924 and 1988. It could have made a profitable trifecta; Dementieva was seeded fifth, Safina sixth and Zvonareva ninth.
 
Their success highlighted the latest nudge by the Russians in a game they continue to swarm. It was no changing of the guard, necessarily, but it was telling that as the gold-medal singles match was played on the main court, the Americans Venus and Serena Williams — far more decorated than any of the top Russian players, and the only two Americans in the top 20 of the world rankings — were on Court 1, winning a gold medal in doubles in front of a smattering of fans.
 
They had been beaten in the quarterfinals of the singles event — Serena by Dementieva, Venus by Li, who then fell to Safina. They were more formidable as a team, rolling past Spain’s Anabel Medina Garrigues and Virginia Ruano Pascual, 6-2, 6-0.
 
It was their second gold medal in doubles. They won at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Australia, and said on Sunday that winning doubles is just as meaningful as winning singles.
 
“I think in the Olympics, a gold is a gold,” Venus Williams said. “It doesn’t even matter the event.”
 
At those Sydney Games, Venus Williams also won a gold medal in singles, beating an 18-year-old Russian in the final match. The opponent was Dementieva. Now 26, she has been a top-10 player for six years in a row, but has never won a Grand Slam event.
 
Solace, more than enough, hung from her neck.
 
“I cannot even compare a Grand Slam and the Olympic Games because it’s just so much bigger,” she said. “This is a dream for every athlete, just to be here. But to be an Olympic champion, this is the top of the career.”
 
Safina forced tired smiles. She has won three times since May, including twice in the past month, and made the final in six of her past seven tournaments. She has bolted up the rankings, starting the year at No. 15 and recently swapping seventh for sixth with Dementieva.
 
But she seemed to run out of energy late in the second set. She blamed her victory march through Los Angeles and Montreal in recent weeks.
 
“It’s sad that it’s not the gold medal,” Safina said. “But it doesn’t matter, because I think what I’ve done, not many girls could do it.”
 
The women’s Olympic event lost some sizzle and face recognition when Sharapova and top-seeded Ana Ivanovic bowed out with injuries. But the quarterfinals recast the possibilities for the Russians. Besides the losses by the Williams sisters, Safina beat second-seeded Jelena Jankovic. Li beat third-seeded Kuznetsova in the first round.
 
The all-Russian final may have excused the sparse attendance at the beginning of the match. By the time they finished and were awarded their medals, the seats were full of people waiting to watch the men’s final between Rafael Nadal and Fernando González, which Nadal won, 6-3, 7-6 (2), 6-3.
 
Still, there was not enough background noise to muffle every anguished scream by Dementieva and Safina, tortured by unforced errors.
 
The women began tepidly, taking turns losing serve the first four games. It was the start of a trend, as both players may have been better off letting the other handle all the serving duties. Of the 29 games in the match, 13 were won by the receiving player.
 
“I mean, to serve, you have to push yourself up, to jump up,” Safina said. “And when the legs are a little bit slow, it just doesn’t go.”
 
The two spent most of the match planted at the baseline, trading deep and hard-struck shots, awaiting a mistake from the other. They avoided the net as if it were toxic, preferring to step back and swing.
 
For a time, it was Dementieva making the mistakes. At the end, it was Safina.
 
She is the sister of former world No. 1 Marat Safin, and shares some of her brother’s well-known on-court expressiveness. She slammed her racket after a pair of double faults — she had 17 of them — and once sent a ball deep into the seats on the opposite end of the arena.
 
Her frustration surely stemmed from her suddenly high expectations. This year, Safina has beaten almost every player ranked higher than her, including Jankovic, Sharapova, Kuznetsova, Serena Williams and the now-retired Justine Henin.
She had also beaten Dementieva three times. But when it counted most, in a final that comes only once every four years, she lost.
But Russia won.

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