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Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Italy's Francesca Schiavone in Womens Semi Finals at French Open

The 5th rank,  28-year-old  Elena Dementieva will play the 17th ranked,  29-year-old Italian Francesca Schiavone in the semis, who upended No.3 Caroline Wozniacki to become the first Italian woman to reach a Slam semi in the Open Era.
Francesca Schiavone (Born June 23 1980 in Milan) is a professional tennis player from Italy. She turned professional in 1998.
Her career high ranking is World No. 11, achieved in January 2006. She has won three singles titles on the WTA tour, but has achieved ten runner-ups in total, eight of them since the autumn of 2005. Schiavone has reached four Grand Slam singles quarterfinals and 1 Grand Slam semifinal. She and her Italian teammates Mara Santangelo, Flavia Pennetta, and Roberta Vinci beat the Belgium team 3?2 in the 2006 Fed Cup final, Italy's  first Fed Cup trophy. She realized the best win of her career in the quarterfinals of the 2008 Dubai Duty Free Women's Open, when she upset World No. 1 and four-time champion Henin 7?6, 7?6. She also beat Amélie Mauresmo in a Fed Cup tie in 2006 when she was ranked No. 1.
Partnering Australian Casey Dellacqua, Schiavone was the runner-up in the women's doubles competition at the 2008 French Open. On June 1 2010, she became the first Italian woman to make a Grand Slam semi-final in the Open era by defeating world #3 Caroline Wozniacki at the 2010 French Open.
Schiavone employs an all court game, similar to that of Justine Henin. She regularly slices her backhand and finds her way to the net to finish off the point. She also has a strong forehand and can dictate with that wing. Schiavone's serve is also fairly good. She is currently ranked at number 17 in the world, due to her success at reaching the 2009 Wimbledon Ladies' Singles quarterfinals and her title in Moscow later in the year.
 

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