French Open - Kuztnesova Beats World No.1 Safina at Roland Garros

The 23-year-old Russian Svetlana Kuznetsova, world No.7, played consistently in the final of the French Open and beat the world No.1 Dinara Safina in straight sets 6-4, 6-2. Both Russians have grow playing each other, but a more determined and calmed Kuznetsova controlled his emotions to a point that for her it was just another match in which she needed to enjoy and play the game she loves.

Safina started the tournament very strong, but getting into the quarterfinals and semifinals, the world No.1 slowed down and her aggressiveness decreased. On the other hand, Kuznetsova got better with every game, until her strong ground strokes were hard to stop even for the greatest players, such as Serena Williams.

During the first set, Safina’s anxiety showed by making double faults in several occasions and converting too many errors when she didn’t have to, whereas Kuztnetsova started with so much calm and confidence that her game flowed consistently. That gave Svetlana a lead and the set with a 6-4.

In the second set, Dinara started a little better and managed to tie the set 2-2. However, the good shots of Kuznetsova broke Safina’s serve and this let Dinara to lose the control of her emotions and become desperate in key moments of the match. At the end, the one-time Grand Slam champion closed the game with a strong mentality while Safina double-faulted once again to close the match and her opportunity to win her first major.

At the end of the game, Safina broke into tears and slammed her racket to the court showing her frustration for her fail. Kuztnesova, in a respectful way for Safina, did not celebrate in a big way, instead she just waved her hands to the crowd, shake hands and gave a cheek kiss to her opponent and finally hugged her coach and her friends, in a way of thanking them their support.

“It’s like having a second baby, you know? One baby you’re happy, and second baby you’re even more happy,” Said Kuznetsova. “It was tough. But I made myself believe in me and not think about the victory. Definitely it was a lot of emotions inside of me, but I control it.”

On the other hand, Safina expressed that she couldn’t handle the pressure, in view of the fact that she wanted to win so badly, she couldn’t control the emotions inside of her. She became desperate on the court and didn’t play her best as she did at the beginning of the tournament.  Now with another loss in a Grand Slam, Safina hopes to learn from her mistakes and will try to put this bad experiences aside so she can focus on what is coming for her in the future.

As some people have criticized the world ranking of Dinara Safina, we hope she can demonstrate at Wimbledon that she deserves the No.1 spot. Additionally for Kuztnetsova we also hope she could increase her ranking and could be in the top spots as well of raising her performance as she has done it in this French Open.