Russians beat Asians in the Glam Slam – Showdown of Champions in Kuala Lumpur

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Wilson Blade 9

The Glam Slam - Showdown of Champions

Elena Dementieva, Maria Kirilenko, Sania Mirza and Zheng Jie took part in an annual exhibition tournament the Glam Slam – Showdown of Champions in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Our friend HCFoo attended the meet-the-fans session held on Friday and followed the rest of the event at home.

Dementieva and Kirilenko defeated Mirza and Zheng 3-0. The Russians won in doubles on Saturday 6-4 5-7 10-8. Then on Sunday, Kirilenko beat Zheng 6-3 4-6 6-4, and Dementieva completed Russian domination by downing Mirza 6-4 7-6 (7-0).

Glam Slam - Showdown of Champions

HCFoo’s overall impression is that the Glam Slam – Showdown of Champions wasn’t actually glamorous and that the organization should have been much better. In addition, the attendance was bad and there was lack of publicity. Still, the matches were worth watching, as the players took them seriously and fought hard.

Elena Dementieva left a lovely impression on HCFoo:

I’ve never met a player so friendly… she would look deep in your eyes, greet you and give you a big smile! *faint*

14 COMMENTS

  1. Thanks Marija for the mention and link. I’m amazed that the girls put in 100% effort in their exho matches. Looks like they treat exho like a training ground for next year. All the best to the girls!

  2. It’s good they took it seriously and that fans had an opportunity to watch good tennis. However, no matter what, I find exhibitions less exciting because I know they are not real tournaments.

  3. That is so true, [what HCFoo said about ‘Jelena’ Dementieva]; when I went to Sydney, she threw us all her towels, and she signed so many autographs courtside.

    Yes I mentioned ‘Jelena’ because I don’t know about overseas, but so many commentators here like to ‘polish’ their accents, or so they think, by pronouncing it with the prefix ‘J’. I find it annoying.

  4. Oh wow that’s so awesome that you got to attend this. I saw her at the US Open and she was really nice.
    On the tennis side, I’m surprised that Maria Kirilenko beat Zheng JIe, though since it’s just an exhibition match, I suppose it’s not that bad. Wish Li Na could have played, eh? lol.
    And Marija, thanks for putting up the Chinese names the right way. I hate it when the commentators, esp. in the US butcher the names and then put the order the wrong way.

  5. Lilly, thanks for the acknowledgement. I did a little research on that. 🙂

    About Elena, from what I know, her name should be pronounced the same as Jankovic’s, and I did a research on that one as well. 🙂

  6. Yes.. that’s what I’ve heard too about the Elena/Jelena pronunciation…
    Don’t know how accurate this is but here’s a link:

    http://www.forvo.com/word/elena_dementieva/

    Also, I’ve heard her say her name as Jelena too. I think it’s people in the US who pronounce her name as Elena because we pronounce everything as we see it, we don’t emphasize tones that aren’t there, it’s all part of the dialect. I’ve seen a ton of interviews by US commentators who say “E-lena” and not “Ye/Je-lena”.

    Here’s a link from Sony Ericsson:
    http://www.sonyericssonwtatour.com/SEWTATour-Archive/Archive/AboutTheTour/player_pronunciations.pdf

    And on one of Marija’s past posts, the one with the pronunciations of the players names at 2:36 the woman says “Jelena”.

  7. Lilly, that’s the common problem with Elena, even in Serbia they don’t know they should pronounce it with Ye-. The same is for Evgeny. Elena and Jelena are the same names, just like mine and Maria Sharapova’s.

  8. Is ‘Marija’ and ‘Maria’, the Eastern European and Italian versions respectively of ‘Mary’, or is there another name for that.

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