Dinara Safina Crashes Out of U.S. Open

2 months ago 06th Sep 15:11

Dinara Safina saw her dreams of lifting her first Grand Slam title dashed last night as she crashed out of the U.S. Open in what was another bad day for the women’s seeds at Flushing Meadows.

Safina has been under par and unconvincing for the entire tournament and she looked out of sorts again last night as she fell to nineteen year old, and unseeded, Petra Kvitova.

Once again her game was littered with unforced errors and she continued to struggle with her serve as she dropped the opening game to her less experienced opponent.

But she pulled herself together in the second as she fired back to dominate and it looked like resurgence was on the cards as she levelled the match with a convincing 2-6 set win.

Safina struck first in the deciding set to take the early break but she could hold onto the advantage as her serve proved to be her undoing, producing nine double faults, and Kvitova broke back.

The world number one battled on, despite being off her game, and had three match points on Kvitova’s service game. Unable to take advantage Kvitova dug deep to produce some stunning winners to force a tie-break.

The moment seemed to be getting to the nineteen year old as she hit a series of balls long to give Safina the edge. But Safina’s game was equally error riddled and a long backhand handed Kvitova two match points.

She threw away the first with some further range issues but on the second she forced Safina long to progress to the next round knocking out the world number one with a 6-4 2-6 7-6 (7-5) victory.

And it was the end of the road for former champion Maria Sharapova as she lost to home favourite Melanie Oudin, who put out Elena Dementieva earlier in the week.

Like Safina the Russian player’s game was riddled with problems as she had sixty three unforced errors and twenty one double faults.

Despite these problems Sharapova, who had been out of the game for nine months with a shoulder injury; making her comeback just before the French Open, took the first set 6-3, despite being broken twice.

Into the second set and the match was still perfectly balanced as the momentum swung back and forth between the two players. But Oudin stood firm against the three time grand Slam champion to take the second set after throwing away six set points.

Oudin struck first in the final set to break Sharapova but the Russian battled back to 3-3 after receiving medical attention by the trainer.

Both players struggled to hold on to their own serves and they were locked together at 5-5. And it was Oudin who got her chance first breaking the Russian before wrapping up a 3-6 6-4 7-5 win.

She will now play Petrova in the next round. Petrova has moved quietly through the draw and beat Jie Zheng to set up a clash with the American.

But there was no such trouble for the number sixth seed, and French Open champion, Svetlana Kuznetsova who saw off Shahar Peer in straight sets 7-5 6-1.

The Williams sisters return to action today as Serena faces Daniela Hantuchova. But the pick of the round is Venus Williams up against a resurgent Kim Clijsters.