Dinara Safina wastes no time in demolishing Anne Keothavong

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Wilson Blade 9

Dinara Safina and Zeljko KrajanTop seed Dinara Safina of Russia powered into the second round of Roland Garros without losing a game to British world No.48 Anne Keothavong.

Some of us thought Keothavong could challenge Safina, as she was semifinalist at last week’s claycourt event in Warsaw, but the in-form world No.1 is silencing the critics more and more after each match. The last year’s runner-up needed just over an hour to end Keothavong’s Roland Garros debut.

“You have to find a way to laugh about it. What else is there to do? I’m sure there will be jokes about it, but I can take it,” said the 25-year-old Keothavong, who last week became the first British woman in 26 years to make the semifinals of a WTA event.

“When we shook hands, she said: ‘At least you could have given me one game’,” revealed Safina.

Compatriot Vitalia Diatchenko will be Safina’s opponent in the second round. (via AFP, photo by our reader Elisa)

16 COMMENTS

  1. BTW: Notice the rarity of occasion in which we see Zeljko so proud of Dina, as evident in the image above… [His earlier commentaries and on court coaching on Dina’s game were extremely critical and harsh]

    Zeljko: [to Dina] Golden match, well done!
    Dina: Really? No complaints, not even my first serve percentage in the first set?
    Zeljko: [ponders for a while] no… not really
    Dina: No way….
    Zeljko: Well actually… I suppose we could work on…
    Dina: Actually never mind- [spins on her heel] alright this way to press conference

  2. Thanks Marija, but unfortunately no :(; he’s already married, but the general tennis community also agree- ‘they look so cute together’! I suppose Zeljko’s wife might be jealous along the track…

  3. Oh and btw, suprise, suprise…

    Q. When you win easy, you practice more after?

    DINARA SAFINA: Yeah, I’m going to go and hit someballs. Just couple things that my coachwas maybe not happy, even the score, 6‑Love, 6‑Love, but there’s always things to improve on the next one.

    Q. What does your coach want you to improve after this match?

    DINARA SAFINA: Well, I guess I could serve a little bit better, and I don’t know, hitting the balls a little harder, especially in that Love game, 5‑Love, when I pushed a few shots he was angry. He said, What’s this at 5‑Love? Hitting the ball. You have to hit it. Just simple things.

  4. Zuleika, this picture is actually not from today’s match, but from Rome, when Dinara won the title. But Zeljko has every reason to be proud of Dinara and his work with her.

  5. Teerin, hehe, everybody’s asking that. I’m not sure. 😛 Maybe Zuleika knows something, she’s an expert on Dina. 🙂

  6. hi marija!!!!

    good day!!!!

    love anne’s attitude after the match,,,but she had too much errors, and dina is playing extremely well, very accurate and very good on important points..

    have you noticed maria sharapova’s dress??? she seems to have the same color she had since 2007 and 2008, dark and heavy blue…

    but maria’s dress today was a combination of venus’ asymetrical layers and ana ivanovic’s asymetrical straps on her adilibria dress….

    maria is in trouble now, down a set…

  7. Maria dominated the last two sets. I mean, whenever she is down a set she storms back in full confidence, which is a great thing.

    However, she’ll play the highest seed she’s ever played since coming back in the next round. She needs to reduce double faults and unforced errors. But hitting almost 40 winners is superb!

  8. Phaura, I like how that blue nuance matches red clay. Well, well, Maria is not in trouble any more. She won the match. Ok, maybe she is, her next opponent is Petrova.

    Guys, what do you think, who will win, Masha or Nadia?

  9. id give it to nadia, she won her match today…

    but i think maria leads their head to head, but nadia moves and translates her game well on clay!!!

    wow, ive been back to your blog now marija!!!

  10. Maria leads their head-to-head 5-1. Interestingly, they’ve never met on clay. I’m giving Nadia a slight edge this time.

  11. I think that Nadia will win. It’ll give Masha a good idea of where her game is when they play. I’ll be an interesting one to watch. Venus also has an interesting second round match against Lucie Safarova, but again I give the edge to Venus in that one.

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