Janković, Elena Dementieva, Samantha Stosur and Schiavone) who had never won a Grand Slam singles event; nevertheless, most in the tennis community, including ESPN's tennis commentary team of Mary Joe Fernández, Patrick McEnroe, and Brad Gilbert singled out Schiavone as the one player who was not a serious contender to win the title. In the semifinals, Schiavone defeated world No. 5 and 2004 finalist, Dementieva (she retired in the second set with a torn calf muscle having lost the first set in a tiebreaker), and the victory made Schiavone the first Italian woman to reach a Grand Slam final, and assured that she would become a top-ten player for the first time following the tournament. In the final, Schiavone faced Stosur in a rematch of their first-round meeting at the 2009 French Open which Stosur had won easily (6–4, 6–2). Because of this previous result, and Stosur's victories over four-time French Open champion Justine Henin, world No. 1 Serena Williams and world No. 4 Janković en route to the final, Stosur was considered a heavy favorite. However, on 5 June 2010, Schiavone defied expectations to become the first Italian woman to win a Grand Slam singles title, beating Stosur 6–4, 7–6. The victory made her only the third Italian player to win a Grand Slam event in singles, after Nicola Pietrangeli and Adriano Panatta. She also became the oldest woman to win a first Grand Slam title in the Open Era, beating the previous record by Jana Novotná. The victory also meant she rose to No. 6 in the world rankings on 7 June 2010 and became the highest-ranked Italian woman ever, after Flavia Pennetta reached world No. 10 in 2009. Schiavone's next event was Eastbourne, where she lost in the first round to Sorana Cîrstea, 5–7, 3–6. As the fifth seed at Wimbledon, due to the pre-tournament withdrawal of Dementieva, she lost to Vera Dushevina in the first round, 7–6, 5–7, 1–6. Schiavone reached the quarterfinals of the Rogers Cup, where she fell to top seed Caroline Wozniacki. She was the sixth seed at the US Open, and defeated Ayumi Morita, Maria Elena Camerin, 29th seed Alona Bondarenko, and 20th seed Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova to advance to the quarterfinals for the first time since 2003 (where she had lost to Jennifer Capriati). In the quarterfinals, she fell to seven-time Grand Slam singles champion No. 3 seed Venus Williams 6–7, 4–6.