Is that a seagull I hear circling over the Indian Wells stadium? No: it's the sound of Elena Dementieva and her high-pitched grunt!

The Russian blonde who was involved in the first of two quarterfinal matches on stadium court was not the one the tournament had hoped to see. Crowd magnet Anna Kournikova had been an early casualty, the third round victim of Nathalie Dechy, so it was up to 59th ranked, 18-year-old Dementieva to uphold the honor of the blonde Slavs at Indian Wells. Dementieva had upset 14th- seed Anke Huber in the second round before impressing us in her win against Serna on Saturday and then accounting for Dechy yesterday. Her opponent today, Chanda Rubin, was a worthy former top ten player who is currently ranked 29th and who notably upset 11th-seeded Sandrine Testud in the third round. Rubin, a versatile veteran who can worry anyone on a good day, would be a test of the young Russian's merit.

Dementieva worried Rubin from the beginning, obtaining four break points in Rubin's first service game. The American fought them all off, but could not get herself off the hook in her second service game. The break point was rather flukey: Dementieva mis-hit a forehand in a way that turned her shot into a looping ball that landed on the baseline. The surprised Rubin drove her forehand reply into the net, and it was 3-1 in Dementieva's favour. But Rubin came back to break Demetieva immediately, and worked the score back even to 3-3. Dementieva was still not quite connecting on her patented down-the-line forehand, while Rubin was cutting down her errors and hitting her forehand harder in an attempt to match the Russian's pace. Finally the Dementieva forehand started working, and Rubin was in trouble serving at 4-5. Chanda staved off a set point when Dementieva misfired on a serve return. But the game dragged on, and on the third deuce Dementieva unloaded a down-the-line forehand that Rubin could not reach. With advantage Dementieva, Rubin netted an easy forehand. Dementieva thereby won the first set 6-4.

After Rubin was broken at love to make the score 3-1 in a game that featured some sloppy baseline errors by the American and a massive forehand return by the Russian, the rest of the match went by pretty fast. Rubin appeared to have lost all hope, and Dementieva swept the final three games to claim a straight set win and a spot in the semifinals.

Rubin had upset Martina Hingis here last year and reached the semifinals, but she was off her game somewhat in this match. The only weapon she really had working for her was her forehand return. From the baseline Dementieva was too powerful and consistent for her, and when Chanda tried to venture to the net her volleying was uncharacteristically poor. She ended up with three times more unforced errors than winners.

As for Dementieva, this is the third semifinal in her career. But the first two, last year in minor events (Tashkent and Palermo), pale by comparison to her achievement in this Tier One tournament. After the match reporters eagerly sought to find out more about this impressive young player with the dynamite forehand, and this is what they learned:

- Reaching the semis here is the biggest moment of her life
- Beating Venus Williams in Fed Cup last year was a turning point in her youg career: "Now I believe in myself."
- She leaves her coach in Moscow and travels with her mother. Mama Dementieva has never played tennis, "but she loves it."
- For now she has no specific ranking goals, but eventually, she says, "I want to be the best."
- When asked what part of her game she would like to improve: "my volleys"
- "I like to watch Martina Hingis, she's my favourite player." Any men she admires? "Agassi. It's incredible he can play every day like this."
- She doesn't get much publicity in Russia "because it's always about Anna Kournikova." What does she think of Anna? "I think everyone knows her vey well. No comment."

In the semis Dementieva will face Lindsay Davenport, imperial this week, who crushed her former nemesis Conchita Martinez, 6-1, 6-2 today. Martinez has a winning record in her career against Davenport, but Lindsay seems to have learned how to deal with Conchita's crazily spinning shots. The lopsided score was rather surprising to many, including the French star Nathalie Tauziat. As she came off the court after her doubles match today Tauziat asked someone for the Davenport-Martinez score: when she heard it, she raised her eyebrows and exclaimed in a surprised tone, "Ah bon!" ("Oh really?").

Davenport beat Dementieva in Fed Cup last year, 6-4, 6-0, so I asked Elena what her game plan would be this time. "I have no idea how to play against her, but I will try my best." As for Lindsay, she is a bit more expansive about her game plan for Elena: "I think a big thing is to try and attack her serve. It looks like when she's serving okay, she has more confidence in the rest of her game. Looks like she has a big forehand that she likes to run around and hit. So sometimes try to go to the backhand or hit it up the line so she has to hit the forehand from that side of the court."

Seeing this first round matchup on the program conjured memories of the 1997 Wimbledon. Gustavo "Guga" Kuerten had just won the French Open to the surprise of all, and despite suggestions that he might skip Wimbledon because he had never played a grass court event in his life, gave the tournament a try. He lost in the first round to Gimelstob, looking like a fish out of water but waging an impressive five-set fight from the baseline against the serve-volleyer from New Jersey. Given that Kuerten had just some from three clay court events in Latin America (winning one of them in Santiago), we were curious to see how he would adapt to the hard courts against a potentially troublesome opponent from the qualifying rounds.

In the first set the American was serving well and volleying with precision, while Guga was struggling with his timing. At least the Brazilian was serving well, and was holding his own service games albeit with some difficulty. Kuerten took advantage of a rare sloppy service game by Gimelstob to break him in the 11th game, and Guga held serve to win the first set 7-5. In this set Guga appeared to have some problems with his leg, perhaps a slight thigh muscle pull, and he occasionally stretched the leg between points during the remainder of the match. It did not appear to hamper his movement and appeared of minor significance: the ATP staff told me that no injury report was filed.

The wheels came off for Guga in the second set as his groundstrokes grew even shakier and Gimelstob continued to play well and confidently. At one point, Guga, frustrated by an unforced error, broke his racquet over his knee! I suppose this is not considered "racquet abuse", since no warning was issued.

In the deciding set, Gimelstob opened the door in the sixth game by allowing himself to be broken at love, with all points resulting from errors off Justin's racquet. Liberated now, Guga closed out the match impressively, treating the fans to some wonderful backhand passing shots that barely cleared the net and dipped beyond the American's reach. Make the final 7-5, 3-6, 6-3, and let's say that Guga dodged a bullet in this match!

Afterwards, the Brazilian idol signed autographs for a small group of beaming young compatriots who had been offering throaty encouragement in Portuguese throughout the match. Guga will likely need the support tomorrow when he takes on unseeded Tommy Haas, the excellent young German star. Haas also survived a three-set upset bid by a qualifier today, squeaking past Cyril Saulnier, 6-1, 6-7, 7-5.

I was anxious to to get my first "up close and personal" look at 20-year-old Juan Carlos Ferrero, On The Line's 1999 Newcomer of the Year who has also compiled some excellent results this season. Not to mention a chance to check on the progress of Michael Chang, the former world numer two whose ranking has skidded in the last two years, but who keeps talking optimistically about his future and occasionally showing signs of life.

As it turned out, the two men are almost mirror images stylistically. Both are undersized by tennis standards; both rely heavily on their excellent speed; both run down a lot of balls, attempt to maneouver their opponent into a compromising position and finish the point with a winner into the open court. So this was a rather entertaining match with lots of impressive foot speed, and cross-court rallies mixed with down-the-line drives.

Ultimately Chang did a better job of controlling the centre of the court, and his shots had better depth than has been the case in many of the recent matches he has played. The match was close, however, and it was the young Spaniard who "blinked" in crucial situations late in each set. In the first set the slightly-built Ferrero was broken at 5-6: he placed hiself in a 0-40 hole with two unforced errors and a double fault, and Chang finished him off at 15-40 with a probing cross-court forehand that Ferrero could not handle.

A similar scenario transpired in the second set, as Ferrero was broken to end the match when serving at 4-5. Chang's match point was spectacular: Ferrero hit an excellent forehand blast and followed it to the net, but Chang ran it down and at full stretch whipped a forehand pass down the line that Ferrero stabbed at, but could barely touch and volleyed into the net.

Next up for Michael: the big-hitting Australian Open semifinalist, sixth-seeded Magnus Norman, who disposed of Franco Squillari in straight sets today.