Among the few positives Dinara Safina could take from a sloppy performance and narrowly averting an epic first-round upset at the US Open was that her brother had the same start to his Open title run.
Among the few positives Dinara Safina could take from a sloppy performance and narrowly averting an epic first-round upset at the US Open was that her brother had the same start to his Open title run.
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World No 1 Safina, still seeking her first Grand Slam crown, outlasted 167th-ranked Australian teen Olivia Rogowska 6-7 (5/7), 6-2, 6-4 on Tuesday, doing nothing to justify her lofty ranking.
"I'm enjoying what I'm doing," Safina said. "It happens that you have a bad day and you want to say, 'I hate everything.' But at the end of the day, you win the match like this, I would say a little bit ugly, and you made it.
"Everything goes wrong, but you still somehow manage to pull the match out, and that's what counts for me. Hopefully from today it's going to get better."
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| World No 1 Dinara Safina |
Safin's brother Marat, playing in what he expects will be his last Slam event, won his first Slam title at the US Open in 2000 after struggling through the first round. Safina hopes to duplicate that feat.
"I remember he said he was struggling from the first round, but he made it. So maybe I'm following his steps this time," Safina said.
"When he won US Open, he almost lost to (France's Sebastien) Grosjean in the first round. He won 7-6 in the fifth set. He was up and the rain started, so they finished another day. Then he had another like difficult match."
Safina was reluctant to look beyond her next foe, German Kristina Barrois, but allowed herself a moment to imagine lifting the championship trophy on the same court where her brother did the same nine years ago.
"If it happens, definitely it will be the best day of my life, because it will happen here where my brother won it," Safina said. "For me it would be even more special. I will do everything to hold it."
Safina, whose best US Open showing was last year's semi-final run, lost to Serena Williams at this year's Australian Open final, to Svetlana Kuznetsova in the French Open final and to Venus Williams in a Wimbledon semi-final.
"In the French Open, I won all the matches 6-Love, 6-1. Did it help? Not really," Safina said. "Definitely it happens like this sometimes. I know that."
She also knows that a Slam title is the only real prize unreached in her career.
"Now that I'm No 1, I want a Grand Slam. No doubt this is what is missing for me," Safina said.
"When it's going to happen, I don't know, but I'm sure it will happen, because I've been very close to winning. I've been in the three finals, so it's just one step. Sooner or later, I will have to make it."
Safina also pondered how much she has improved and matured over the past few years, imaging how she might have handled the pressure of being down a break and facing two break points in the third set as she was Tuesday.
"There would maybe be more crying," she said. "Today I would scream here and there, but overall I was in the match. I was trying to do the best I could. Maybe that time I would go much more down and much more negative."
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