Jankovic is undoubtedly my favourite player on the women's side and until recent times I didn't favour her up against Dementieva as a match-up due to the Russian's relentless and accurate attack. But the last three meetings between the two, the Serb has won all 3 (6-0 in sets and an amazing 33-8 in games) and one of those matches was in Rome last year on the dirt. Dementieva, as rael mentioned, was abysmal on serve yesterday and it would be sad to see a re-occurance of her old serving yip days. In full flight, she is a delight to watch with her flat aggressive groundstrokes and incredible movement, but her confidence does seem to be lacking. Jankovic was clinical in her display against Kirilenko, never allowing the Russian to settle and proving far too steady from the back of the court. Whilst Dementieva's serve wasn't too flash yesterday, Jankovic has always been labelled as having only one weakness - that serve as well. She is incredible in defense, hits so well down the line to turn the defense into attack, and is one of the finer athletes on the tour barring any injuries which she is prone too on a regular basis. Jankovic has a major advantage on clay over most players not only because of her baseline consistency but also because she does the Clijsters-invented "split slide" extremely well which allows her to get the ball back and be in good position for the next shot. She looks like she has the hunger for this tournament, has an 8-2 record over Russians in recent times and it's hard to see the Russian turning around her recent form against Jelena. 2 sets.
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