dinarasafina.com
Dinara Safina was the world’s number one ranked tennis player in 2009, but she has yet to break through and win a Grand Slam title. She is the younger player of Marat Safin, two time Grand Slam winner himself. According to tennis.com, they are the first brother sister team to both be ranked number one. However, Dinara was not number one for very long.
What happened to this promising young Russian? I have not seen her since last year’s US Open where she lost miserably in the third round to a player who is practically unknown and not ranked in the top ten. Many tennis fans think that she has had a mental breakdown. She has never had a strong mental game. Oftentimes, she was seen throwing her racket to the ground, cursing in Russian in a fit of rage during her matches. This is definitely not the behavior of a stable tennis player who is at the top of her game. In fact, the year of 2009 was a huge disappointment for Dinara. She made it to three out of four Grand Slam finals, but lost every one badly. Serena Williams trounced her at the Australian Open final. She made it to the French Open final, but she was often in tears of frustration because of her disappointing performance. She lost this final to Svetlana Kuznetsova. In her third and last final of 2009, Dinara lost to Venus Williams at Wimbledon in straight sets with a score of 6-1, 6-0 according to tennis.com. It is hard to believe that she only managed to win one game. She was ranked first in the world when she played this match! I think that this was a breaking point for her.
Dinara has been out most of early 2010 due to a back injury, but she is now back in form and ready to play. She is currently ranked 59th in the world according to dinarasafina.com. It is my belief that she will need to be better than her best to be a real contender in 2010 or 2011. First, she is just coming off of an injury and has not played much tennis in the past several months. Second, her mental game has never been strong. She really needs to improve this aspect of her game. Finally, she could not beat either of the Williams sisters when she was at the top of her game. Dinara Safina is going to have to improve her game immensely to win a Grand Slam in the next two years. I guess that only time will tell. Let’s see what 2010 and 2011 have in store for the newly recovered Dinara.
What happened to this promising young Russian? I have not seen her since last year’s US Open where she lost miserably in the third round to a player who is practically unknown and not ranked in the top ten. Many tennis fans think that she has had a mental breakdown. She has never had a strong mental game. Oftentimes, she was seen throwing her racket to the ground, cursing in Russian in a fit of rage during her matches. This is definitely not the behavior of a stable tennis player who is at the top of her game. In fact, the year of 2009 was a huge disappointment for Dinara. She made it to three out of four Grand Slam finals, but lost every one badly. Serena Williams trounced her at the Australian Open final. She made it to the French Open final, but she was often in tears of frustration because of her disappointing performance. She lost this final to Svetlana Kuznetsova. In her third and last final of 2009, Dinara lost to Venus Williams at Wimbledon in straight sets with a score of 6-1, 6-0 according to tennis.com. It is hard to believe that she only managed to win one game. She was ranked first in the world when she played this match! I think that this was a breaking point for her.
Dinara has been out most of early 2010 due to a back injury, but she is now back in form and ready to play. She is currently ranked 59th in the world according to dinarasafina.com. It is my belief that she will need to be better than her best to be a real contender in 2010 or 2011. First, she is just coming off of an injury and has not played much tennis in the past several months. Second, her mental game has never been strong. She really needs to improve this aspect of her game. Finally, she could not beat either of the Williams sisters when she was at the top of her game. Dinara Safina is going to have to improve her game immensely to win a Grand Slam in the next two years. I guess that only time will tell. Let’s see what 2010 and 2011 have in store for the newly recovered Dinara.
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