The simple truth is that no other elite tennis player had as great a career with such a debilitating liability than Elena Dementieva, who has announced her retirement after 13 years on the tour. Once ranked as high as No. 3, Dementieva’s deeply flawed three-quarter serve — slow, predictable and erratic — was the subject of shocking stats (she double faulted 79 times in six matches at Indian Wells in ’00) and endless commentary.
Steve Bierley claimed that Dementieva’s delivery was like “the struggle one has to scrape the skin off one’s rice pudding.” Cliff Drysdale contended that his “postman had a faster serve.” Mary Carillo added that watching Dementieva serve was “like watching Shaq at the free throw line.”
“Hold on,” John McEnroe once cautioned, “Dementieva is in danger of holding her serve.” Even Dementieva herself was critical: “I hate my serve. I don’t know how to serve. Serena will probably look at it like a drop shot,” she said. “What I have to change is in my mind. I have to love it. Then I’ll have a good serve.”
In part because of Dementieva’s problematic serve, Billie Jean King once contended that there should be coaching specialists in tennis — coaches who focus solely on the serve, the most important stroke in our game. In mid-career, Dementieva confided, “I’m prepared to do whatever it takes to overcome my nerves, my poor serve. I’ll seek a psychologist, anything I can.”
To her everlasting credit, Dementieva recently did work to significantly improve the stroke. Still, the 29-year old, lean and balletic, always moved like the wind. Swift and graceful, powerful off both wings (especially the forehand,) in baseline rallies she was a potent counter-puncher. Her greatest triumph, a moment she’ll always savor, was winning the ’08 Beijing Olympics over Dinara Safina, whose mom was her formative coach. But, in significant measure because of her serve, the Muscovite faltered time and again. Yes, she collected 16 titles and was consistent and durable. She appeared in 46 straight Slams, a streak that ended this summer at Wimbledon due to injury. But she lost the first all-Russian Grand Slam to Anastasia Myskina in ‘04, and later that summer fell in the U.S. Open final to Svetlana Kuznetsova. Then when the WTA was diminished by the brief retirements of Justine Henin and Kim Clijsters and the walkabouts of Venus and Serena Williams, Dementieva’s coach, Harold Solomon, told her, “This is a unique time in women’s tennis and there is an opportunity for you…If you really believe in yourself.”
Solomon went on to note that, “She’s almost too humble, almost embarrassed about being cocky, almost embarrassed about thinking that she’s really good. In order to be No. 1 you need to be able to believe it, know it, feel it, and expect it.”
While fierce warriors like Serena would find a way to win, Dementieva was arguably the greatest player of our era never to win a Slam. Not surprisingly in the ’09 Wimbledon semis, the longest women’s match in All England Club history, she had a match point against Serena and just couldn’t put away a point-blank shot.
With Dementieva’s big matches there was always a certain fragility, or worse yet, a certain dread, a sense that a nasty car crash was about to happen. Plus there were some mini-controversies in her career. In ’02 at Indian Wells, she said that the winner of the Venus vs. Serena semi would be a “family decision,” and seven years later at Wimbledon she used the same phrase — “family decision” — to indicate how the Venus-Serena semi would be decided. Plus, Dementieva and Mary Pierce exchanged pointed barbs after the Russian accused the Frenchwoman of stalling in the ’05 U.S. Open semis.
Overall, Elena was a popular, supportive player and a favorite in and outside of the locker room. Her grace and poetic movement always drew a sense of wonder. Some tabbed her the most beautiful bridesmaid in tennis history. Lean and regal, the quintessential Russian blonde was a curious, often baffling mix of almost breathless elegance and fatal flaws. Despite all her doubts, and there were many, her presence will be missed by all who cherish athletic grace.
