Jelena Jankovic reacts to winning her Cincinnati semifinal vs. Elena Dementieva. Photo via d.yimg.com

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WTA Cincinnati coverage

For the second time this week, a battle of Eastern European women in Cincinnati ended by the score of 7-6, 0-6, 7-6.

#5 Jelena Jankovic was on the winning end of this one, defeating #4 Elena Dementieva in a match that lasted 2 hours and 45 minutes.

Jankovic had triple match point on her serve at 5-4, 40-0 in the third, but blew all three.  Dementieva then had quadruple match point at 6-2 in the third set tiebreak, but blew all four of those and then threw in a double fault for good measure, to give Jankovic the lead at 7-6 in the breaker, and her fourth match point, which she accidentally won to take the match.

As maligned as this match could be, it was nothing if not entertaining.  Painful and unimpressive, certainly, but always entertaining.  A match where it takes a big effort to hold serve is not inherently worse than a match in which it takes a big effort to break serve.  It's just a different style of competition.

Some stats to take away from this match for the ages:

• 25 total Double Faults (17 by Dementieva, 8 by Jankovic)
• 92 Total Unforced Errors (55 for Dementieva, 37 by Jankovic)
• 15 Breaks of Serve (9 by Dementieva, 6 by Jankovic)
• 7 Blown Match Points (4 by Dementieva, 3 by Jankovic)

Dinara Safina, on the other hand, won her semifinal vs. Flavia Pennetta running away, 6-2, 6-0, proving again that she can play like a real #1 on the medium-size stages.  Safina also had the advantage of having the afternoon match, so she'll have a huge advantage in terms of fatigue over Jankovic. 

Sunday's final could easily be a similar 14-game affair.