Elena Dementieva speaks fluent French, is perfectly at ease on the Parisian clay and she beat local favourite Amelie Mauresmo on her way to an all-Russian French Open final.
Now she believes she cannot afford to lose Saturday's historic showdown with compatriot Anastasia Myskina.
"I must win the tournament now. I have no choice or the crowd will never forgive me for beating Amelie," said the ninth-seed from Moscow.
The tall blonde player with a ravishing smile and devastating forehand demolished Argentine Paola Suarez 6-0, 7-5 in only her second Grand Slam semi-final on Thursday.
The task was hardly a daunting one after her victories over Mauresmo in the quarter-finals and American Lindsay Davenport in the previous round.
The Parisian crowd had no hard feelings after her win over Mauresmo, adopting the 22-year-old Russian as one of theirs.
Dementieva took a French degree at school and speaks French almost as fluently as France's Canada-born 2000 champion Mary Pierce. Her looks, aggression and strong character were all she needed to complete her conquest of Parisian hearts.
MOSCOW FINAL?
"This is my favourite tournament and I always feel great here. Of course, the fact that I speak French helps a lot," she added.
Russian, not French, will be the official language in Saturday's final when she meets the player she probably knows best on the circuit in the first all-Russian final in Grand Slam history. Dementieva and Myskina are both 22, started playing at the same time and belong to the same Moscow club.
"I think we must have played more than 30 times against each other.
"We should play that final in Moscow," she said.
Ironically, whereas Dementieva is almost at home at Roland Garros, Myskina always struggled there until now. She had won only one match at the French Open before this year.
Against Suarez, Dementieva did not play the best tennis Paris has seen. There were dozens of unforced errors, 12 breaks in 18 games, and it was above all a battle of nerves.
"We did lots of mistakes but that's normal. It's the end of the second week in the toughest tournament physically and it's also hard to handle the stress," she said.
Coping with pressure is the aspect Dementieva has most improved since her first Grand Slam semi-final at the U.S. Open four years ago.
"2000 was a great year for me," said the Russian, who also won the silver medal at the Sydney Olympics that year.
"But since then I have not been able to handle the pressure. It has taken me four years to come back," she said.
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