Dementieva, along with Frenchwoman Nathalie Dechy, were inadvertently implicated when a Belgian sports minister revealed that there had been a positive test at a four-woman exhibition event in the city of Charleroi in December.
The minister, Claude Eerde-kens, eventually named another Russian, US Open champion Svetlana Kuznetsova as the culprit, though she was cleared by the Women's Tennis Association because ephedrine, the drug concerned, is not on the banned list when taken out of competition.
However, Dementieva and Dechy both vented their anger at being implicated.
But though she reiterated that she would not be talking to Kuznetsova, Dementieva said she had moved on.
"The story is over for me now," she said.
The 23-year-old, runner-up at the French Open and US Open last year, said she had received a lot of positive reaction from her fellow players.
Dementieva lost in the first round of the Australian Open in both 2003 and last year but said she hoped to continue her good form throughout the event.
The sixth seed now plays Daniela Hantuchova, the 26th seed from Slovakia, for a place in the last 16.
Venus through
American Venus Williams eased into the third round of the Aus-tralian Open with a 6-3 6-1 win over Chinese amateur Peng Shuai yesterday and declared she was on course to have a shot at winning the tournament.
The eighth-seeded Williams made a nervous start when she dropped her opening service game but quickly stamped her authority on the match to seal victory in one hour, 12 minutes.
"You can't expect every match to be perfect but it still was a very good match because I got to hit a lot of balls," Williams said.
Her last appearance in a final was at the 2003 Australian Open when she lost to her sister Serena but she has lost none of her well-known confidence.
"No matter what happens, whether you played well, whether you played badly, whether you made good decisions or bad ones, mentally you always have to feel like it's your turn to take to win," she said.
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