Jon Henderson Watches the First Russian Female to Win a Grand-slam Title

If this was the future of women's tennis, heaven help it. In a desperately poor contest, Anastasia Myskina won the battle to become the first Russian female to land a grand-slam singles title when she beat Elena Dementieva 6-1 6-2. The low point came just before the end of the match when Dementieva, overwhelmed by the inadequacy of her performance, broke down in tears after yet another service error. 'I hate my serve,' she yelled out in Russian.

The tears flowed again at the press conference. 'If I could play in the final of a grand slam without serving. You know, I don't know how to serve...' she said, but was unable to carry on. To her credit, though, she quickly regained her composure and added, smiling mournfully: 'I have been waiting for this all my life. I couldn't handle all this pressure. I will never forget this result.'

Dementieva received her biggest cheer when, at the awards ceremony, she addressed the centre court crowd in French and promised that next time she appeared in a final in Paris she would perform much better. Her disappointment was again palpable when she then walked off court leaving behind the silver plate, her prize as runner-up. She will, though, bank a cool £278,000 for her efforts, while the victorious Myskina, who had to raise her game to nowhere near the level that saw off Venus Williams in the quarter-finals and Jennifer Capriati, Serena Williams's conqueror, in the semis, collected £557,000, a haul in roubles of 29.7million.

The contest, if that is not overstating what took place over a desultory 58 minutes, continued the uncanny sequence of match-ups in women's finals here: in 2002 two Williamses, in 2003 two Belgians and now two friends from Moscow, both 22, duelling for tennis's clay-court crown.

It is a sequence that should make anyone wanting to predict a Russian takeover of the women's game think carefully, particularly in light of yesterday's shoddy fare. Who will be next year's finalists whose feelings of familiarity are at least as strong as their sense of rivalry? Dementieva preferred to give credit to the 'phenomenon of Russian woman' rather than any system put in place by the Russian federation. 'I wouldn't say that our federation is doing a great job at the moment,' she said with admirable candour.

Myskina, who said she did her crying before the match in the locker room, was unfortunate that her victory should have been overshadowed by the indifference of Dementieva's performance. Mostly, she simply had to keep the ball in court to succeed where 30 years ago the only other Russian woman to appear in a grand-slam final, Olga Morozova, who is now Dementieva's coach, suffered crushing defeats at the hands of Chris Evert here and then at Wimbledon. Natasha Zvereva, a Belorussian, appeared in the 1988 final here and played even worse, if that is possible, than Dementieva did yesterday. Zvereva lost love and love to Steffi Graf.

The only time Dementieva, the ninth seed, led in the match was when she broke Myskina in the opening game. She settled more quickly than the sixth seed, hitting two confident winners before Myskina double-faulted to concede the game. It was the second game that foreshadowed the complete collapse of Dementieva's challenge. She started with a double fault, offered (false) encouragement by serving the only ace of the match, and then delivered two more double faults to allow Myskina to break back immediately. Myskina then took control of the match by winning eight games on the trot. Most of the time, she simply had to keep the ball in the court and wait for the hapless Dementieva's nervousness to do her point-winning for her.

It was in the penultimate game that Dementieva broke down when her ninth and tenth double-faults handed Myskina a 5-2 lead. After shrieking her detestation for her serve, Dementieva momentarily held her head in her hands and wiped away a tear as she looked towards Morozova in the stands. She did manage to hold one break point in the next game, but Myskina responded with a skimming forehand pass down the line and then simply had to stand and watch as Dementieva struck two poor returns to, mercifully, bring the match to a conclusion.

It would be wrong, on the basis of this one result, to dismiss what Russia's female players have achieved. Only time will tell whether, with 13 players in the top 100, they are coming to dominate the women's game. But the question asked just as eagerly here this past week has been: are the Williamses going?

There is every chance the two American sisters will re-establish themselves at Wimbledon where the grass suits their fast, aggressive games far more than the clay of Roland Garros. But it will take more than a successful tournament on their favourite surface to convince the world that their underachievement in Paris has been anything more than a blip, just as one grand-slam title is incomplete evidence of a Russian takeover.

What the Williamses now have to do is have six months to a year during which they are untroubled by the injuries and illnesses that have so dogged them in the past year and, just as important, they demonstrate beyond question that the lifetime celebrity status they have now acquired is not more consequential to them than playing tennis.

And what neither the Russians nor the Williamses should forget is not only are the Belgians, Justine Henin-Hardenne and Kim Clijsters, who contested last year's final here and have been laid low by illness and injury these past few weeks, raring to return, but also Jie Zheng who reached the last 16 here this year is the first Chinese to do so in a grand slam. Stand by for the start of the long march of Chinese tennis?