Flashback to 2004 US Open Semifinal

In my series of US Open matches flashbacks, we go to 2004 this time and take a closer look at the semifinal between Elena Dementieva and Jennifer Capriati.

2004 was the year the Russians dominated the grand slam scene, winning three of the four major tournaments at the French Open, Wimbledon and US Open. Just one year before, the Belgians dominated with Justine Henin and Kim Clijsters contesting the French, US Open and 2004 Australian Open finals. Therefore in the space of 12 months, the Belgians and Russians took over completely from the Americans. Prior to mid-2003, Lindsay Davenport, Jennifer Capriati, Venus and Serena Williams won all of the majors from the turn of the millennium bar Mary Pierce who won the 2000 French Open final.

In 2004, the semifinals were a battle between the Americans and the Russians; surprisingly the Russians came out on top. Surprising because Lindsay Davenport and Jennifer Capriati were both multi grand slam champions and former number 1 players; playing on their home turf. The one area where the Russians had the edge was athleticism around the court. The first semifinal between Lindsay Davenport and Svetlana Kuznetsova was a three set battle and a really fast match, Davenport took the first set but Kuznetsova at the age of 19 came back and won the next two sets surprisingly comfortably to reach her first final. The second semifinal was bound to provide fireworks as Jennifer was always a crowd favourite and Elena was one of the most exciting and infuriating players on the tour at this stage. Jennifer went into this match having lost three previous semifinals at the Open. In 1991 Jennifer lost to Monica Seles, ten years later in 2001 to Venus Williams and 2003 to Justine Henin, two of defeats ending with third set tiebreaks against Seles and Henin. However, on this occasion Jennifer was bound to like her chances with a head to head lead of 3:0 going into the match.

The match began with Elena serving first and holding her serve very easily. That would be an unusual occurrence because by this stage of her career Elena had the most bizarre technical deficiencies I have ever seen from a professional tennis player. On both courts Elena threw the ball so far to the right she was literally flinging herself to serve on each occasion, there was virtually no backhand or body serve on either court.  The first time I saw Elena play was in 2000 and then I saw her play live in Wimbledon in 2002 against Henin, there was no clue that Elena would end up with such serving issues.

In contrast, Jennifer started badly and was three points down in her first service game and subsequently broken to love.  Fifteen minutes later, Jennifer was completely out of the set with a washout. Elena made only three unforced errors and hit winner after winner, and went to net on a number of occasions. In contrast, Jennifer was backing off, not creating any angles and instead of taking advantage of the few mid court balls that came her way, backed off to the baseline instead of following into net to put the pressure on Elena. The ball was doing some funny things so perhaps the wind was swirling around the court; there was a lot of rain and very windy conditions that year.  

Jennifer knew she needed to improve in the 2nd set if she wanted to make it a match, she was not showing any real frustration thus not panicking.  Jennifer held her first service game to love which got a huge cheer from the crowd; at 1:2 Jennifer finally got her first break as Elena started to lose control of her shots which were now going out instead of going in for clean winners.  Jennifer broke again at 4:2 and was able to serve out the set. By this stage Elena’s game was all over the place with a combination of missed easy smashes and wild errors, Elena’s unforced error count went up to 18 in the 2nd set, which will give an indication of how out of control her game became.

With a score of 6:0 2:6, this set things up nicely for the deciding set with Jennifer back in the match, anything was possible but what we got was one of the craziest sets ever seen on a tennis court.  Jennifer got the first jump in the 3rd set converting on her second opportunity, hitting a lovely forehand into the corner on Elena’s forehand wing.  Unfortunately for Jennifer, she got broken back immediately with play that was a little too passive and so we went, another break for Jennifer to 2:1 then broken back again for 2:2!  By now, Elena’s amateurish serve was really getting on Jennifer’s nerves; every serve was to the forehand on both courts with not a single serve to the backhand first or second. Rather amusingly, one serve was called a let by the Umpire who then called “2nd serve” but corrected herself and called “1st serve” to giggles from the crowd, the serve was so slow it was perfectly understandable the Umpire wasn’t concentrating. Jennifer tried everything, big returns, hit and charge the net, very frustrating to deal with such a bad delivery over and over again. And yet, if that’s not bad enough, Elena was probably the best player in the world at moving around the baseline and fighting because of her poor serve, so there was a lot for Jennifer to deal with.

Jennifer did find a way to break again at 3:3 but lost her serve again!  Elena then got to 5:4 and Jennifer served to stay in the match, which she did with relative ease!  Maybe this shouldn’t be a surprise because the match was absolutely crazy with a completely energised New York crowd; Jennifer was always one of those players who got the crowd going with her emotions. Jennifer wasn’t done though and after yet another incredibly attritional game with fabulous long rallies, Jennifer was able to break again and serve for the match!  But guess what? Yep, you guessed it Jennifer couldn’t hold.  In fact there were two of the most incredible points at 15 all and 15:30 where each time Jennifer literally smashed the ball straight at Elena at the net and she won both the points! One of the shots could have put her in hospital if she wasn’t quick enough to get out of the way and hit the volley whilst screaming at the same time, no doubt fearing a potential injury.  That was enough to get into Jennifer’s head and she doubled faulted on the second breakpoint and we were into a tiebreak. 

As we know, the US Open is the only major which has a deciding set tiebreak. In some ways  it is great and brings the match to a climax but in many ways it is not great at all as it robs the crowd of a clear winner, and we should realise the tiebreak is often a lottery. Everything was going fine but at 3:2 Jennifer hit a forehand wide then on the next point Elena hit a clean forehand winning return. So that should have been that at 5:2 but Elena lost the next two points on her serve so we were back at 5:4.  Jennifer played a good point but didn’t hit the volley out of Elena’s reach who hit a forehand down the line to set up match point. Next point match was over after Elena hit an inside out backhand winner down the line out of Jennifer’s reach.  A slightly sad ending but great for Elena who didn’t really celebrate, maybe she was drained after such a long battle, the third set was considerably longer than the first two put together.

The statistics for this match are incredible as you can see.  Jennifer only hit 15 winners whilst Elena hit 44, three times more winners. Elena also went to 44 times and won 30 points which is brilliant statistic. In a three set match, a serve volleyer would got to net around 40 to 50 times so frankly that is quite astonishing that a baseline player went to net so often; Elena’s momentum often took her forward and a fast court suited her style.  Jennifer on the other hand went to net 23 times and won 15 points which isn’t bad.  What makes this match so bizarre is that Jennifer had all the chances in the 3rd set to win the match outright but the statistics clearly demonstrate Elena was the one making the play and going for outright winners and forcing the issue at the net.  So, who really deserved to win this great match? 

On analysing the match, my feeling was Jennifer was a bit too passive throughout and was not prepared to hit into the corners often enough to make Elena stretch, that will explain two things, the first being the low winners count and the second being the fact that every time she broke in the third set, she was broken back immediately as she became too cautious with a lead.  In 2005 I read the wonderful book by Michael Mewshaw called “Ladies of the Court, Grace and Disgrace on the Womens Tour” covering the 1991 season. After Jennifer lost to Monica Seles, Jennifer went into the press conference and said she should have been “more aggressive”.  Michael Mewshaw wondered “how? Rip up the net post and brain Monica?” However, watching a rerun of this match I understand what Jennifer meant in 1991, she was not willing to take chances when it mattered, her play was too cautious. This is an area people who watch tennis get confused, as they often equate someone with hitting the ball very hard as being aggressive but of course there is a lot more to it than that, it comes down to tactics and courage and willingness to go for broke when the score is close, that makes the difference.  For whatever reason, in the semifinals of the US Open, Jennifer was not able to make it happen.

Jennifer’s career was virtually over soon after this tournament, I don’t recall her retiring officially but she suffered serious shoulder problems and she never really got back onto a tennis court.  Elena did play for a few years, she also had more opportunities to win a major tournament but her serve let her down at bad moments her entire career.  Having said that, she was an exciting player to watch and this was one of the matches of the noughties.