At the Barclays Dubai Tennis Championships, second seed Svetlana Kuznetsova came out as a winner of a seesaw semifinal against fourth seed Jelena Jankovic. Final score 5-7 6-4 6-3.
Amazingly, there were a total of 43 break points during the match. Jankovic converted 14 out of 21, and Kuznetsova 16 out of 22. The match was long and undecided, but it seemed to me that world No.4 Jankovic let the victory slip through her fingers as she was more confident and emotionally stable and seemed more likely to win throughout the match. Actually, even though I believe a few of Jankovic’s wasted chances gave Kuznetsova the victory, towards the end of the match, Jankovic’s tiredness and Kuznetsova’s physical fitness and energy also had their share in deciding the winner.
In the first set, world No.3 Kuznetsova was the one who was leading during most of the set. She was the one who broke first, and even though Jankovic rebroke right away, Kuznetsova broke once again later in the set. Jankovic even had to save one set point. However, in the end, Jankovic leveled to 5-all, and since then she was the dominant one, and sealed the set with her first set point. I won’t go into details, but the whole match was pretty much like the first set, nothing was certain until the last point, it was a match of the equals. Jankovic amazingly saved six match points, but the first one on Kuznetsova’s service the Serb couldn’t defend.
In the final Kuznetsova will face either powerful Francesca Schiavone, who stunned two-time defending champion Justine Henin, or eighth seed Elena Dementieva who defeated Ana Ivanovic in the quarterfinals.
