Elena Dementieva PROFILES

Elena Dementieva PRE-TOURNAMENT ODDS: 16/1 NATIONALITY: RUS BIRTH DATE: 15/10/81 BECAME PRO: 1998 WORLD RANKING: 5

VERDICT

This extremely experienced campaigner could be finally on the brink of her maiden Grand Slam title after she reached new heights by becoming the Olympic champion. Her failure to land any of the four majors has been largely down to her awful serve but the thrilling triumph over fellow Russian Dinara Safina in the Beijing final will no doubt boost her confidence of achieving more landmark success in the future. Dementieva, who won the Dubai Championships earlier this year, has been hit by several injury problems and illness throughout the season but her run to the semi-finals of Wimbledon was encouraging having previously failed to reach the last four of any major since the US Open of 2005.

TEN-YEAR GRAND SLAM HISTORY 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 00 99 Australian Open 4R 4R 1R 4R 1R 1R 4R 3R 3R 2R French Open QF 3R 3R 4R RU 1R 4R 2R 2R 2R Wimbledon SF 3R QF 4R 1R 4R 4R 3R 1R 1R US Open - 3R QF SF RU 4R 2R 4R SF 3R