TENNIS/Women's Singles Final: They may be friends but Russian players are not known for their on-court sensitivities.
The sixth seed Anastasia Myskina and ninth seed Elena Dementieva may have knocked around at the same Spartak tennis club in Moscow but today one of them will become the first Russian player ever to win a Grand Slam.
Demure they may look but if these kids thought cannibalism would help their cause, they'd have their grandmothers in the freezer.
Coincidentally, the last Russian woman to reach a Grand Slam final was Olga Morozova, who is Dementieva's coach. She was a runner-up at Wimbledon and Roland Garros in 1974.
Before this year neither player had advanced beyond the fourth round and only Dementieva had ever played in a Grand Slam semi-final.
Together the 22-year-olds will bring to five the number of countries that have produced compatriots in a French Open final. Last year Justine Henin-Hardenne defeated fellow Belgian Kim Clijsters, while the USA's Serena Williams beat her sister Venus in the final of 2002.
Australia propelled two players into the 1971 decider, where Evonne Goolagong beat Helen Gourlay in two sets, 6-3, 7-5, while in 1938, France celebrated as Simone Mathieu and Nelly Landry graced the centre court, Mathieu winning 6-0, 6-3.
Should Myskina win she would become the first woman in the open era to have survived a match point before winning the competition, after finding herself at 5-6 in the third set against another Russian, Svetlana Kuznetsova.
She has certainly come through the difficult side of the draw, although Dementieva has some scalps of her own, Lindsay Davenport and Amelie Mauresmo both falling to her powerful ground strokes.
This is not Dementieva's favourite surface, her trademark cross-court whipped forehand a more lethal weapon on the faster hardcourts. Still, she has put it to good use so far in Paris. Myskina, of all players, will know this shot well and will likely play the ball away from that side.
Of the two, Myskina has shown the greater shrewdness, upsetting Capriati by mixing flat, hard balls with looping, slow ones. The red clay is also her favourite surface.
"We know each other really well," said Myskina after the semi-final. "But it's not really an advantage because she knows my game, I know her game. I think it is who is going to be stronger mentally, that person will win."
They have not socialised with each other since the beginning of the tournament, Dementieva staying around the Bois de Boulogne area, the western suburb where Roland Garros is situated, Myskina preferring a hotel on the Champs-Élysées. But more than the geography of it, the two understand the competitive need to be separate.
"Of course we're friends," said Myskina. "But still it's a tournament, it's a singles tournament. So I prefer to stay with my team and she prefers to stay with her team."
Dementieva is the physically stronger player, while Myskina has better lateral movement, though neither has a decent second serve. The match could hinge around that aspect of their game and against Capriati, Myskina showed how ruthless she will be if given a chance to punish balls that sit up.
It was Morozova who aptly summed up the week: "You were writing, 'the Russians are coming' for how many years?" she told the Herald Tribune. "Okay, finally you ask, we deliver."
