NEW YORK // The Beijing gold medallist Elena Dementieva found it difficult to break free from the Olympic bubble. After finally getting her hands on a major title last week, she snapped back to attention in the nick of time to come from 5-3 down in the second set, saving two set points, before beating Akgul Amanmuradova of Uzhbekistan 6-4 7-5. Eight days after pulling off the greatest win of her career, Dementieva admitted she was still pinching herself.
"I was holding (the medal) for three days, to make sure it's not a dream. It's real," said the Russian fifth seed. "It's really very hard not to think about the Olympic Games. Yesterday I was trying to go to sleep but I couldn't because my mind is still there." To Dementieva, the Olympic singles title counts. "The biggest goal for the year was Beijing," she said. "In Russia, if you stop anyone in the street and ask what is a Grand Slam, I don't think many people can tell you. But everyone knows the Olympic Games. There is nothing bigger."
During a quick stopover in Moscow to see her mother and drop off her gold medal, she found out how much the win meant. "People just come to me and say, 'Oh, I'm happy for you. You're always losing in the final. It's so great that you finally win something big,"' she said. Meanwhile the American Lindsay Davenport, a gold medallist at the Atlanta Games in 1996, did not seem to suffer from any ill effects from the knee injury which has curtailed her season and eased past Canada's Aleksandra Wozniak 6-4 6-2.
The second seed Jelena Jankovic underlined her title aspirations with a 6-3 6-1 exhibition against the Grand Slam debutante Coco Vandeweghe. On the low-key opening day, the third seed Svetlana Kuznetsova, the former Wimbledon runner-up Marion Bartoli and the 15th seed Patty Schnyder. The 10th seed Anna Chakvetadze's challenge, however, stalled in the first round. She collapsed to her earliest grand slam defeat in over three years when she was hustled out 1-6 6-2 6-3 by her fellow Russian Ekaterina Makarova.
* Agencies