Elena Dementieva has expressed surprise the roof on Rod Laver Arena was not closed prior to the start of her quarter-final against Carla Suarez Navarro.
Dementieva and Suarez Navarro battled through almost 40 degree Celsius heat at Melbourne Park's main show court with the fourth seeded Russian eventually prevailing 6-2 6-2.
The extreme heat policy was not brought into play until 1.45pm local time which then allowed for the roof to be closed after the first set of the quarter-final tie between Serena Williams and
Svetlana Kuznetsova which followed Dementieva's match.
She said: ‘I'm really surprised because when you see the forecast it's going to be 41 today, 43 tomorrow, the hottest week in a month, why not close the roof?
‘I had some pretty hot days in Sydney playing in my last tournament. But I think if you have a roof why not use it.’
Dementieva struggled with her serve throughout the game, serving 10 double faults - four of those in the epic sixth game of the first set that went through 11 deuces before a wayward Suarez Navarro backhand allowed the Russian to close it out at the seventh time of asking.
Dementieva added: ‘The sun was pretty strong. Usually when you play at 11am it's not that strong but today it was a very dangerous sun and very strong.
‘It was very hard to serve on one side so instead of just going for the good serve, you were just trying to put the ball into the service court somehow because you couldn't see the ball.’
The 6-2 6-2 scoreline was not a total reflection of the match against the 20-year-old Suarez Navarro.
Playing in her second grand slam quarter-final, after reaching the same round on her debut at the French Open last year, the Spaniard struggled with nerves at the start but once she settled down she began to unleash some huge forehands and ripping one-handed backhands.
Suarez Navarro, who dumped Venus Williams out in the second round, finally got on the board in the fifth game then had several chances to claim back a break in the sixth. But she was unable to do so and went on to lose the first set.
Dementieva took control early in the second, breaking Suarez Navarro in the first game and going a double break up in the fifth for a 4-1 lead.
Then after another tough service game, in which she came from a break down and then took three attempts to hold on, she was made to wait for her own service game to close out the match.
Dementieva said of the Spaniard: ‘She is very strong physically, a very fit player. Playing for the first time, I didn't know what to expect from her.
‘I knew she's a very solid baseline player, who's quick and hits lots of points back to me.
‘Maybe it looked easy. But I think for such a score like 6-2 6-2, we're playing one and a half hours, which is a pretty long match.’
