Yes, I passed on the Kournikova upset so I could check out this match. Many tennis observers are impressed with Dementieva, a tall 18-year-old Russian who caught the attention of many when she took Conchita Martinez to three sets at last year's US Open and defeated Venus Williams in Fed Cup. Her ranking is 59th and rising. Yesterday she had knocked off 14th seed Anke Huber, and now faced the talented lefty from the Canary Islands, Magui Serna.

Dementieva is a tall baseliner who looks even taller because she has great posture! She also has an effective serve and a world-class forehand that marries precision and power. Her shots are accompanied by a grunt that might best be described as a high-pitched whoop.

Serna, a hard-serving lefty with an impressive variety of shots, looked as though she might be ready for the big time with a strong 1998 season, in which she reached the fourth round of two Grand Slam events and beat world class players such as Novotna, Pierce and Graf. However, the Spaniard had an off-year last year, and her ranking has dropped back to 46.

I arrived at the match with Serna having just taken a 6-4 lead. Dementieva started out the second set like a house afire, controlling points with her blazing but smoothly struck forehands to take a 4-0 lead in the second set. Dementieva was getting a lot of points by inducing cross court exchanges from her right-handed forehand to Serna's lefty backhand, and Magui was getting overmatched at that tactic. At this point Serna made the wise decision to avoid the Dementieva forehand at all costs, and started sending her backhands down the line either sliced or with looping topspin. The tactical change worked, as while Dementieva can blow away opponents with her forehand, her two handed backhand is fairly ordinary by comparison. Forcing Dementieva to play a lot of backhands, Serna promptly went on a run of her own to even the score at 4-4.

It looked like Serna would break Dementieva yet again to take a 5-4 lead, but the Russian fought off a break point with a booming forehand and took a 5-4 lead. Serna then played a horrid service game, making three straight forehand errors -- including one with a moonball! ? to hand her opponent the second set 6-4, and a third set was called for.

It appeared as though Serna was wilting on a hot day, and that Dementieva was fitter and fresher. Serna, it should be said, is?. er, how to put it? a bit round. She appears to have lost some weight since last year, but she could still stand to knock off some more, and her movement was becoming more ponderous. Dementieva capitalized by breaking Serna early in the set, and held on to it to close out the deciding frame 6-4.

We now are assured of an unseeded quarterfinalist, since Dechy and Dementieva will duel in the fourth round. Can young Nathalie beat two Russian blondes in succession? Time will tell.

Our upset queen from yesterday, Capriati's executioner Cara Black, was trying to keep it going against the veteran lefty from Belgium, Sabine Appelmans. The magic was not there for Cara on this day, as she was dominated from the beginning of the match.

Essentially, Appelmans was able to do to Black what Capriati was unable to do yesterday because of her own wildness: keep Black on her heels with deep, hard baseline drives. This was one of the most aggressive matches I have ever seen Sabine play. Always a good counter-puncher and retriever in past years, it seemed to me that Sabine was taking the ball earlier and hitting the ball harder than she has previously done. Black was on her heels for most of the match, forced to hit shots from a defensive posture.

Appelmans was on fire early, steamrolling to a 5-1 lead before before closing out a 6-3 first set. In the second set Appelmans again got her nose in front early, taking a 4-2 lead before running into a patch of errors that allowed the Zimbabwean to draw level at 4-4. Near the end of the set Black appeared to be improving her performance, taking control of the points with cleaner and deeper groundstrokes, but Sabine did nor back off from her aggressive mode and the two women battled to a tie-break.

Herewith, the patented On The Line tie-break summary, which gives a good idea of the way the points tended to unfold throughout the match.

• 0-0, CB serving: a big CB cross-court backhand winner
• 0-1 SA: SA unleashes a crosscourt backhand passing shot and CB misses an attemped acrobatic volley
• 1-1 SA: another big CB cross-court backhand forces an error
• 2-1 CB: CB nets a routine forehand
• 2-2 CB: service winner to SA's backhand
• 2-3 SA: CB sends a backhand long
• 3-3 SA: SA jams CB with a serve, comes to net and converts a backhand volley
• 3-4 CB: SA nets a forehand and berates herself in Flemish
• 4-4 CB: CB nets a forehand after a point where both had to make some great gets
• 5-4 SA: CB hits a solid return and SA nets a backhand
• 5-5 SA: service winner to CB's backhand
• 5-6 CB: a probing SA forehand forces a backhand error by CB

Next up for Sabine in the fourth round is none other than 7th-seeded Monica Seles. Appelmans has recently been a difficult adversary for Seles, who doesn't like playing fellow left-handers at the best of times. "I had a tough couple of last matches against her," said Monica. "I played a three-setter in the Australian Open against her. It's going to be a lot of long rallies." Certainly, long rallies were the least of Monica's worries today?.

The tennis connoisseurs settled into their seats in the spanking new Indian Wells stadium wondering which Patty Schnyder they would see walk on court. The talented shotmaker who is capable of giving the best players in the world fits? Or the nonchalant waster of her own talent whose brain sometimes seems to be located in another galaxy? Regrettably it was the latter Schnyder we saw today, and what should have been an interesting encounter was a one-sided travesty.

Schnyder was present in body only in this match, as her heart and mind had evidently taken a leave of absence. This was particularly true in the 17-minute first set bagel, in which Patty won only 9 of 34 points and made more errors (11) than points won. She woke up a bit in the second set, but not much, and the match was mercifully over in just 45 minutes.

Seles admitted after the match that she was surprised to see Schnyder's walkabout: "The last time I played Patty I won 7-6, I think, in the third set (this was at Hilton Head in 1998). I knew coming in it's a tough match. She's a tough lefty player with great hands. I was surprised." Although it's hard to judge how well Monica is playing on the basis of this match, she appeared to be moving well and hitting the ball cleanly. As Seles herself said, Appelmans will be a better test in the fourth round.

Seles did mention her two biggest short-term goals at this point in her comeback from a foot injury: getting back in match shape and improving her serve. "Hopefully I will have a couple of weeks before I go off to Europe where I really would like to train hard and be able to run, because I haven't run, really zero?. And I think I need the first serve back. Whenever you play the top four or five girls they're holding their service games. If I'm not able to do that I will always lose 7-5, 6-4, those scores."