IJelena Dokic beat Elena Dementieva yesterday in a dramatic match which lasted more than 2 hours 4-6, 6-4 and 7-5 to proceed to the quarterfinal of Charleston, whilst Serena Williams rushed through her third round match agains Conchita Marinez in straight sets as usual.

In their previous rounds Jelena beat Maja Matevzic, and Serena beat a player named Dally Randriantefy, both in straight sets.

Serena is the number 1 of the world! Unbeaten for ages, won 5 Grand Slam tournaments, the season ending champoinships once, and 16 other tournaments in her young career. Is anybody here who doesnt know the 22 year old amerikan?

Serena faced Jelena three times, and won all occasions in straight sets. Two of them happened in 2000, and as Serena had already established on the top be then, and Jelena was still only a promising talent, i am not going on
about these matches. But their last meeting was only about half a year ago and happened at the season ending champoinships, and though Serena won in straight sets again, that match is well worth mentioning!

Jelena played like hell in the first games. She had an excellent serve, serving her first with more speed than Serena (her second is faster anyway), hit aces and winners whenever she needed them (even had an ace on second serve!), and it was the first time that i have seen my parents getting exited about a tennis match, since Boris Becker won Wimbledon!!!!!!!

They needed a tie-break to decide that set, where Jelena injured herself, lost that tie-break and (because of that injury) was just not able to compete with Serena in set two. And that fact will count for today as well: Jelena has to be 100% if she wants to have a chance!

But will she have a chance? Serena is Serena, she was then, and she is now! She is dominating the tennis world, and definately the best player the world has ever seen (ok, maybe because of improved medical treatment and better equipment as Graf or Navratilova had, but that is not important now). She rose tennis onto a new level and until now, only very few players showed that they can only look up to that level without the help of telescope.

Her sister Venus Williams is one of them, Kim Clijsters another one, and then? Actually nobody, if there wouldnt be that little pain from Yougoslavia, who never does, what everyone expects her to do! (quote: Serena Williams)

Jelena archieved position no4 in the WTA world ranking last summer, and her run to the top seemed to be unstoppable but she couldnt handle the private problems she had with her family and dropped to position no 8 until the end of 2002. She entered the new season, with a new coach, a new home at monaco, being seperated from her family, and a enthusiastic fan communtiy which expected only the best for her.

But then? She had the longest loosing streak of her career, from her loss to Serena until Indian Wells no decent result to shop up, and had to fear to loose her Top10 spot. And as nearly everybody lost convidence in her, she played Key Biscane, profed everybody wrong, and made it to the quarters!

So now it would have been expectable that she would defend her title at Sarasota, but she lost the opening round again, even droped out of the Top10 after being in there for 547 days, and her fans feared the worst for Charleston..... but Jelena never does, what everyone.... (quote: Serena....)

She made it to the quarters! She will now face Serena Williams! And actually Jelena should not even have a chance to get a decent result.... but as Serena said: Jelena never does, what everyone expects of her!

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The match will be played as first match of the night session on center court, and will start at 7pm local time, which equals with New York or Montreal, is 4pm in Los Angeles, midnight in London and 1am in Belgrade.

If you feel like having fun, supporting Jelena, and cheering for her, you are very welcome to join the chatroom of www.jelena-dokic.com during the match! You will also get the latest score updates there, quicker as anywhere
else!

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Gerhard
www.jelena-dokic.com