INDIAN WELLS, Calif.—It is hard to imagine a sharper contrast between the faces of two players walking into a press room than what reporters saw today from Elena Dementieva and Petra Cetkovska. The third-seeded Russian, who was upset by Cetkovska in three sets today, didn't want to be there—at all—and wasn't afraid to show it. She played with her hair absently. She stared blankly. She gave the shortest answers imaginable. It didn't help that one of the first questions was asked by a young girl—"What advice do you have for young tennis players"—and another was about her pet dogs.
To hear Dementieva tell it, she didn't want to be at the BNP Paribas Open at all. “I think I shouldn't come here," she said, sounding annoyed at herself for making the trip. "I didn't have enough time for recovery after playing so many matches in the beginning of the year. I need a break and to start over."
Dementieva looked flat to start, going down 3-0 right away and losing the first set in a tiebreaker. Her serve let her down at crucial stages (though it never morphed into the haywire delivery of old). She missed routine ground strokes and was on her heels – where she never thrives – in rallies.
"I just think my mind wasn't there," Dementieva said flatly. "I was not really excited about this match. Just didn't play at all."
Despite her desultory and weirdly defiant words and attitude, it wasn't all about Dementieva today. She was backed off the baseline by some inspired shot-making from the 71st-ranked Cetkovska, who matched the Russian's flat, line-drive ground strokes, mixed in deceptively tricky floating slice backhands that the pace-loving Dementieva drove long, and served confidently to close out the match.
It was the biggest win of the 24-year-old's life, Cetkovska confirmed at her own press conference. Tan and glowing, her light-brown hair at her shoulders rather than bunched up under a baseball cap a la Dementieva, she had walked into the interview room with a wide smile and announced herself to the assembled reporters with a happy, "Hello." This was the rare journeywoman's opportunity to sit down before the big mike. She was thoroughly charming at it, never losing the wide smile or the bright demeanor. She even stopped to think about her answers before she gave them.
Cetkovska, who had lost her only other match against Dementieva 6-3, 6-2 at the 2007 U.S. Open, said her game plan was to be aggressive before Dementieva could be aggressive. The Czech woman said that she was able to keep her composure because she knew Dementieva was too good not to make a run.
"I knew that she was going to come up with something," Cetkovska said. "When it came, I just tried to keep what I had in my head and what I wanted to do."
Cetkovska had to qualify for this tournament, and her biggest previous career win came over Marion Bartoli. The Czech woman moved to Paris four years ago because her boyfriend was training at a tennis academy there. She no longer has the boyfriend, but she still has Paris.
"I found my game, I found my coach," she says of her time in the city. "I found a little bit of success."
Can she find more? Dementieva's loss opens up the bottom half of the draw and creates an opportunity for defending champion Ana Ivanovic. Next for Cetkovska is the winner of Daniela Hantuchova and Belgium's Yanina Wickmayer. Whatever happens there, one thing the tournament has already gained, in the form of a 24-year-old qualifier: someone who wants to play in it.
Executive editor Steve Tignor is covering Indian Wells for TENNIS and blogging for TENNIS.com.