People are so funny ... because a player wins a TierIII and reaches the following week the finals of the weakest TierII of the year, that player is top5 material! Until Amelia Island this year, the majority of the people thought Elena would be known as one of the best players having never won a singles tournament ...
I'm not saying Amelia Island wasn't a great win (she did beat 3 top10 players at that time) and she did improve her game a little ... but in the big events, Elena has yet to show what it takes to be top5. Clearly 2003 has to be her best year so far ... but her performance in the GS this year was one of the weakest of her career. And she has only 1 SF in a TierI this year. Nobody will get to top5 with just this kind of results ...
But as Dawn said, if somehow Elena would become #5 or even #6 in the next year with the kind of play she's shown, it's probably because of injuries from higher ranked players and it would show once more, how meaningless rankings really are ... and I wouldn't be surprised if after that Dementieva would have a Dokic-like down-fall ... Elena and Jelena have lots in common : a one-dimensional type of game with no real weapon to hurt anybody! They practice "pure power game" ... it's bam bam bam bam with no strategy whatsoever ...
Having said that, she's on her way up though ... but top5 is still far far away IMO!