Elena plays a rushing game

It all started years ago when they were kids growing up in Moscow. Training together at the Moscow Spartak club and becoming the best of friends, they used to liven up their practice matches with a little bet: the loser buys the pizza. Myskina ate well and Dementieva was always skint.

Their most famous face-off was in the French Open final last year when, as is always the way, Myskina walloped her mate for the loss of only three games. Dementieva, stricken with nerves, served ten double faults. A bit like watching a car crash, it was gruesome but fascinating.

It was the first all-Russian final in the history of the women's game and was the start of the Russian revolution last year. From Myskina's victory at Roland Garros, Maria Sharapova won Wimbledon and Svetlana Kuznetsova won the US Open, where she beat Dementieva in the final.

For all the hype around the Russian women, Dementieva was the forgotten name - she was a loser, and yet she was the most consistent of the group.

Most of the others were one-hit wonders - only Sharapova has continued to win with reckless abandon - while Dementieva reached two Grand Slam finals.

Not only that, but she had been part of the original Russian revolution, one step behind Anna Kournikova. Both were blonde, both were from Moscow but, unlike the much-photographed Miss K, Dementieva actually won things.

When she first emerged as a potential world beater in 2000, she was just 18. She reached the semi-finals of the US Open and had Lindsay Davenport on the ropes before she suddenly realised where she was and what she was doing. She was on the verge of reaching her first Grand Slam final and she was not ready. Collapsing with a fit of the jitters, she was marked down as a choker, not to be bothered with. And yet the US Open was one of many places that year where she proved that she had real talent.

"When I look back on my tennis career I realised that the year 2000 was the greatest year of my career," she said. "I was 18 years old; I was in the semi-finals of the US Open; I was in the semi-finals of the Championships and I won a silver medal at the Olympic Games but it just came too quickly to me, too fast.

"I was under pressure all the time. I was top 10 but I didn't feel like a top 10 player and that was a really hard time for me. I started to lose in first rounds because I didn't have enough confidence, all the people were pushing me and saying 'you have to win this one, you are a big player now' and so it was a very difficult time for me."

And for the next five years she stumbled around the circuit, failing to live up to her potential. Only at the start of last year did life start to improve. Working with Olga Morozova, the 1974 Wimbledon finalist, the confidence began to return and she was on her way the French and US Open finals.

The manner of her loss to Myskina was unbearable - she was in tears both during and after the match - but the loss to Kuznetsova gave her hope. She had choked horribly in Paris but in Flushing Meadows, she was simply beaten. No nerves, no disgrace, just a little disappointment.

"I think that was the most incredible moment of my tennis career," she said. "I would never forget this moment. At the end of the tournament I was so tired, my leg was injured and I wasn't satisfied with the way I played that match but it was still the best moment in my career. I'd never forget it. I look at my runner's-up trophy very often when I'm at home and this reminds me how good this tournament was for me."

The feelgood factor is, she hopes, going to carry her through to the quarter-finals in SW19 for the first time. But that means beating Myskina and that is a big ask. "It's always interesting to play against her because we know each other so well," was the best assessment she could manage.

When she lost to her pal in Paris, it took her mother to mop her up and persuade her to celebrate the fact that she had, at last, reached the final of a major tournament. So out she went to have a few sherbets and who did she take along with her? Her bestest friend Myskina. Who else?

"We were just celebrating this final," Dementieva said, "and people, when they saw us they were like 'Oh, it's Myskina and, oooh, it's Dementieva and they are together.' They couldn't believe their eyes, they thought we wouldn't be speaking to each other. When we were younger, if I lost to her I wouldn't talk to her for a couple of days but now I play against Russian players almost every week, so I'm kind of used to it."

Myskina is kind of used to Dementieva, too. She has just been through the worst few weeks of her life as her mother has battled against cancer. Her results have been awful - she was the first champion to be trounced in the first round of the French Open just weeks ago - and her mind has been elsewhere. But with the news that her mother is doing a little better and with a battling 6-0, 5-7, 10-8 win over Jelena Jankovic on Friday, she thinks she has turned a corner.

And facing Dementieva again, she knows just what to expect. "I know her weaknesses," she said. "I know what she can do best. And she knows the same things about me. I know her serve is not that great. She's improving it every day but that's still my advantage and I have to take it."

Growing up in what used to be the Soviet Union, both women share memories of the bad old days, days when there was no foreign travel, no money and no way out.

"It's a funny time to remember now," Dementieva recalled, "because we were washing the balls after each practice, you know. We couldn't find a skirt for me to play a match so we bought a long skirt and then my mum just cut it in the way I needed. She was good at sewing in those times."

Such memories give the Russians a different perspective on life and grim determination to make the most of their chances. Having spent that last week or so working with Richard Krajicek, the 1996 Wimbledon champion, to beef up that dolly serve of hers, Dementieva knows that, little by little, she is making progress. To reach the last eight here would be a real achievement but to lose to Myskina would not be the end of the world either.

While Sharapova hogs the limelight and Kuznetsova struggles to come to terms with her role as a Grand Slam champion, Dementieva, the unsung heroine of the pack, is the one who is quietly improving all the time.

And whoever wins between Myskina and Dementieva, one thing is certain - it will be pizza for supper on Monday night.