Dementieva thrashes top seed Rubin in WTA final

Dementieva thrashes top seed Rubin in WTA final

Agencies, Nusa Dua, Bali

Second seed Elena Dementieva took an unexpected victory by making easy work of top seed Chanda Rubin 6-2, 6-1 in the singles final of the Wismilak International WTA tournament here on Sunday.

Dementieva, who was defeated by Rubin at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, played aggressively throughout the 68-minute game, a marked change from her usual style of only picking up speed in the later sets.

Rubin played hard but only managed to score her first point after being three games down in the first set.

She fought for and won another point to close the gap at 2-3 after three deuces but after that her defense quickly crumbled in the face of relentless attacks from the Russian player.

The second set followed the same pattern, with Dementieva mercilessly pounding the American, only allowing her to score one point after two deuces. The Russian clinched the second set 6-1 to pocket the US$35,000 winner's prize.

"This is my best match of the year... I am usually a slow starter, but today I did it from the beginning," a grinning Dementieva told reporters after her victory.

She also said that she enjoyed playing in Bali, a destination still recovering from the crippling blow dealt by a deadly bomb blast in October last year that killed 202 people, mostly foreign tourists.

"I will come back. Either for tennis or for vacation," she said.

Rubin, who took the $19,000 second prize, was more reserved, telling journalists: "Elena is really improving."

"Today she was on and didn't make a whole lot of unforced errors and she was really going for her shots, hitting winners.

"I started off a little bit slow and tried to give myself a chance to get into the match, but I needed another gear that I didn't have today."