Beijing Olympic gold medallist Elena Dementieva earned a place in the season-ending championships when she overwhelmed Alize Cornet of France in the Pan Pacific Open tennis tournament here on Thursday.

The Russian third seed, the winner here in 2006 who received a first-round bye, took the first 10 games in a row before scoring a 6-0, 6-3 victory over the 18th-ranked Frenchwoman in 69 minutes.

With the win, she joined Jelena Jankovic, Serena Williams, Dinara Safina and Ana Ivanovic in qualifying for the November 4-9 elite championships in Doha, Qatar.

"This is great that I'm gonna be there, because this year I was fighting to get into the tournament. It's very nice, I'm very excited about Doha," said Dementieva, ranked fourth in the world this week.

"First of all, it's great to have a chance to play there, because at the end of the year, this is the biggest event," she said.

With the stadium's roof closed due to rain in the morning, Dementieva got off to a perfect start and Cornet had to wait for the Russian's backhand error at 40-15 to take her first game in the 11th game of the second set.

The 18-year-old Cornet took three straight games, but it was too late to get back into the match.

"In the end of of the match, she (Cornet) had nothing to lose and she started to play very aggressive. We had a good fight," said Dementieva.

"Maybe I lost my concentration a little bit, because I won 10 games in a row. It's never easy, because I was always trying to make a winner."

In the quarter-finals on Friday, Dementieva will take on either Francesca Schiavone of Italy or Katarina Srebotnik of Slovenia.

Sapa-AFP

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