Living in a shadow appears to be the bane of Dinara Safina’s life. Throughout her early career, the Russian has been frequently referred to as Marat’s little sister. Yet, in the past year, Safina’s game has spoken for itself, announcing her as a player in her own right.
Earlier in the tournament, after surviving a fourth-round scare and two match points against France’s Alize Cornet, she admitted it was as though her ‘shadow’ was playing the match. “Dinara is there, but just not me,” she said afterwards.
Now, once again, the Russian has been cast out of the spotlight as Serena Williams basks in the glory of being crowned Australian Open champion following her 6-0 6-3 defeat over the 22-year-old at Rod Laver Arena on Saturday.
It doesn’t help that the Safina was also pipped to the post at Roland Garros in 2008 – losing out to Ana Ivanovic – and had to settle for silver at the Beijing Olympics after losing the final to Elena Dementieva. To rub further salt into the wound, if Safina had won in Melbourne, she would have been world No.1 for the first time in her career, but now she sits behind Williams – who has reclaimed top spot – at No.2.
Unsurprisingly, it was a heartbroken Safina that emerged for her post-final press conference, one where she admitted to feeling the pressure. “It was the first time for me to play not only for the Grand Slam, but it’s also for No.1 spot. And I have never been through this situation, you know, and she was already. She was much more times in this situation. I would say she was much more experienced than I was stepping on the court.”
Safina said she was trying to stay positive, but simply did not have enough time to do what she wanted – the match lasted less than an hour.
“She played exactly the way she had to play and she was much more aggressive and she was just taking time out of me, so I didn’t have that much time to put myself back onto the court,” she said.
“She didn’t even let me come into the match.”
Despite the loss, the young Russian is refusing to dwell on the negatives. Quite rightly, she says time is on her side - and she will soon hit the courts to work on correcting the mistakes she was making.
“After every loss, I try to take what was good and what was wrong, and to work on my weaknesses, to get them better, that my opponents will not have that easy next time,” she said.
“If I would lose the first round, of course I would sit here and I would start to think. But I lose in the final, you know. I made (it) all the way. There is much more positive than negative. So just I lost the match, and now it’s back to training. I don’t see any reason to panic or to make thousand thoughts in my mind.”
Encouraging words, but true to form, the last question was about her older brother rather than herself. “Have you heard from Marat yet?” a journalist asked. “I don’t know,” came the reply. “I put my phone in the bag of my coach and I can’t even get it. I don’t even know who text me …”
