20 for 20: No. 9, Williams d. Dementieva, 2009 Wimbledon

Last year, for the 50th anniversary of TENNIS Magazine, we focused on the past. Given the tome of stories we’d told, and the trove of players and matches we’d witnessed over the past half-century, it was only natural to look back.

And it was comical to even consider doing something similar this year, for the 20th anniversary of TENNIS.com. So we’re taking the opposite approach, and instead focusing on the future. All throughout the week, we’ll be talking about what’s next for the sport, the website and much more.

It wouldn’t be an anniversary, though, without a countdown. But how do you count down events that haven’t yet happened? By predicting what will come to be.

With that said, we present TENNIS.com’s 20 for 20: Twenty matches that we’ll still be talking about twenty years from now. We’ve restricted this list to matches that have taken place in the last 10 years—or, as 20 for 20 author Steve Tignor has put it, “The Golden Decade.” (If you haven’t read our 50th Anniversary Moments or Tournament of Champions, also written by Steve, I implore you to do so.)

It has been a bountiful time for tennis since TENNIS.com’s inception, and it’s anyone’s guess what the next 20 years will bring. But we believe that each of these matches will sustain the test of time.—Ed McGrogan, Senior Editor

When it comes to classic-match lists, the problem for Serena—if you can call it one—over the last 10 years is that she has won her most important contests too easily. Yes, she’s had her share of surprising scares, but when it comes to the later rounds at Grand Slams, in the matches we inevitably remember the longest, she has rarely given her opponents a chance to make it interesting. Of the 14 major finals Serena has won since 2006, nine have been in straight sets. Of the five that went the distance, her opponent won more than two games in the final set just once.

All of which makes this semifinal, in which Serena and Dementieva ran each other across Centre Court for two hours and nine minutes—a record for a Wimbledon women’s semi—that much more memorable. The two women were separated, on more than one occasion that afternoon, by less than an inch.

Coming in, there was also little to separate them. Neither had dropped a set in their first five matches at Wimbledon, and while Serena was the clear favorite because of her history as a champion, Dementieva had won three of their four previous meetings, including one at the Olympics in Beijing the previous summer.

When she broke Serena in the opening game, and then held her sometimes shaky nerve through the first-set tiebreaker, another win by the Russian looked like it might be in the cards. It continued to appear that way in both the second and third sets, but, whether it was her serve, the replay system or the netcord itself, Serena always held the trump.

When Dementieva reached break point at 4-3 in the second set, Serena blasted a forehand that appeared to be wide to many, but which Hawk-Eye revealed to have caught a millimeter—or less—of the sideline. When Dementieva reached break point at 5-5 in the same set, she hit a passing shot that many believed had clipped the line. According to Hawk-Eye, though, it was a few millimeters wide.

Finally, and most crushingly, was the way Dementieva had her one match point wiped away in the third set. Serving at 4-5, 30-40, Serena approached the net, a place where she had had little success that day. Dementieva had a choice of where to hit a backhand pass; she chose crosscourt, but so did Serena, who reflexed a backhand volley that clipped the tape and went over for a winner.

“Elena played so well,” said Serena, who would go on to beat her sister, Venus, for the title two days later, “and we gave the crowd a wonderful match.”

While the margin was razor-thin, the result was hardly a surprise. There’s a reason why Serena is the all-time Slam champion of her era, and Dementieva ended her career as the best player never to have won a major.

Fortune, to change a phrase, favors the good.