Russian Women Missing at the Australian Open Semifinals

For the second straight Grand Slam event, no Russian woman has made it to the final four. Maria Kirilenko and Nadia Petrova were eliminated in the quarterfinal stages of the first grand slam of the year losing in straight sets to Zheng Jie and Justine Henin, respectively. The last Russian semifinalists at a grand slam were Elena Dementieva and Dinara Safina at Wimbledon 2009.

This is however, not a surprising result. Safina, despite holding the #2 ranking was not amongst the pre-tournament favorites. Maria Sharapova, the 2008 champion was picked by many to win her second Australian Open title but she went out in three sets to Kirilenko in the first round. The most recent Russian Grand Slam winner, Svetlana Kuznetsova, was outed in the fourth round by Petrova. Kuznetsova has never gone past the quarterfinal stage in Melbourne in 9 appearances in the main draw.

Aside from Sharapova, the next best Russian hope coming into the event was Elena Dementieva. Dementieva reached last year's semifinals and has won the Sydney tune-up the weekend prior to the Australian Open beating #1 Serena Williams in the first set. She however, was drawn to meet seven-time major winner Henin, in the second round. She lost in straight sets to the come-backing Belgian.

It would be interesting to see how long this spell will last. The French Open 2010 is the next grand slam in the tennis calendar. The French Open last year was contested by Kuznetsova and Safina. Other Russian players like Petrova, Vera Zvonareva, and Dementieva are strong clay-courters too. Currently, there are 3 Russians in the top five, 4 in the top 10, and 6 in the top 20 - the most from any nation. This inability to reach a Grand Slam semifinal is more of an exception - look for at least one, or maybe two Russians to make it to the semifinals at the 2010 French Open.