Myskina cruises as compatriot fails to turn up

Tennis/French Open Women's Singles final: Boris Yeltsin loves tennis, Vladimir Putin skiing. Strange things you learn at press conferences. Yeltsin, forever the politician, sent a message to both Elena Dementieva and Anastasia Myskina before Saturday's all-Russian French Open final.

However, even the lure of fine French wines couldn't drag Boris from Moscow.

Dementieva was the blonde with the ponytail, Myskina the brunette, who won the match 6-1, 6-2 as her friend, wanting the moment so badly, choked away her chance in just 58 minutes. She could have done with the broad shoulders of a former Russian president.

Screaming out in Russian during the match, "I hate my serve," Dementieva subsequently broke down at the post-match interview.

"I don't know how to serve," she sobbed. For a professional player, that's a serious accusation to make against oneself. With only two weeks to go before Wimbledon, Dementieva has a lot of mending to do.

Normally the matches between the two are close and few would have predicted Dementieva's implosion, which made for a muted, eerily predictable outcome as she whacked away 33 unforced points and in the second set won only 38 per cent of her first serves to add to 10 double faults.

To find the last Roland Garros final in which the defeated player won just three games or fewer, we have to resurrect Steffi Graf's double-bagel toasting (6-0, 6-0) of the then Soviet Union's Natasha Zvereva in 34 minutes. Even in last year's clash between Justine Henin-Hardenne and her Belgian compatriot Kim Clijsters, which was considered drearily one-sided, Clijsters was able to scramble together four games.

Heaven knows what Dementieva would have been like if Boris, grinning widely after a fine state lunch, had brought his bearing to the match. But in the aftermath she was at least able to recognise her startlingly apparent shortcomings.

The depth to which she sank into nervousness was both unfortunate and illuminating, and, after the fog had cleared, the 22-year-old was able to accurately describe the symptoms. More "Grand Slam dementia" than "Grand Slam Dementieva", it hurt .

"I was too nervous today. I couldn't play my game at all," she mumbled.

"I was waiting for this moment all my life (but) just couldn't handle this pressure. I was maybe too excited today on court. My concentration wasn't there. I couldn't even, you know, see the ball. Just didn't apply my game at all.

"I wouldn't like to have this experience again. I will never forget this result. I was rushing all the time, just couldn't stop rushing. Couldn't change anything, you know. Just wasn't me on the court today."

Myskina's cool and almost detached direction of the match came despite an on-court history of histrionics. At the Australian Open she became involved in an unseemly shouting match with her German coach, Jens Gerlach, who also happened to be her ex-boyfriend.

Her parents also received a blast of choice Russian tennis angst. The Pauline conversion come only in the last three matches in Paris.

"I know that it doesn't help if you yell at somebody. I mean I was yelling at myself more than anybody," said Myskina, who unlike Dementieva was crying in the locker-room before the match began.

At times refreshingly impertinent - "If Putin doesn't like tennis, he likes more skiing, it's his business. We don't really care." - Myskina will arrive in Wimbledon with a Grand Slam title but precious little in the way of grass expectations.

While her ground strokes should impale most opponents in the first week, how she will deal with the two Williams sisters, Henin-Hardenne and Clijsters, who should all be in better health, remains in question.

Graff's swift despatching of Zvereva 16 years ago was an act of imperious superiority that accurately reflected her presidential quality on the court and the gulf in ability.

Saturday's final, for the second year in succession, was not. No president, no competition.