Dinara Safina made it fourth time lucky when she overcame top seed Martina Hingis to clinch the Australian Women’s Hardcourt tennis championship 6-3, 3-6, 7-5 on Saturday.
The 20-year-old Russian has participated in the tournament since 2004 and her best result until this year was a semifinal appearance in 2006.
But the world number 11 and second seed used her booming ground strokes to overcome Hingis in two hours, ten minutes of high quality tennis at the Gold Cost, getting a major boost one week before the start of the Australian Open.
Hingis also made the semifinals here last year in her first tournament back after a three-year break.
She countered Safina’s power game with some delightful touches of her own but the Russian was able to dictate play as the match wore on. She clinched the match by breaking Hingis to love.
Safina had a much tougher path to the final than Hingis and fought out long matches against Samantha Stosur in the quarterfinals and Shahar Peer in the semis.
Her semifinal against Peer was played on Friday night and was followed by a doubles match immediately after.
But she started brilliantly in the final, winning her first service game to love and striking the ball with enormous power and precision.
She broke Hingis’s serve in the sixth game and held the advantage to take the set 6-3.
”I was waking up during the night wondering if I was tired or not, then when I woke up [this morning] I was feeling actually very good; I was surprised at how good,” Safina said.
”And even my coach asked me like ‘What did you have for breakfast, beans and eggs?’.”
Hingis fought back in the second set and began to move Safina around the court, with the Russian beginning to look tired.
Hingis broke her in the second game, but Safina broke back in the fifth, only to surrender another break in the eighth and lose the set 3-6.
”I came back in the second set and played a decent third,” Hingis said. ”After the first set I started playing better and being more aggressive otherwise I would have been run over in straight sets.”
Both players appeared to tighten in the decider, with a run of four consecutive service breaks early in the set.
”I couldn’t put my first serve in — I had a very low percentage,” Safina said.
”And with her it’s tough — if you show her a second serve she starts to dictate from the first point.”
The pair settled down and played out a tense set, before Safina seized her chance and broke Hingis to love to take the title.
”Coming here I couldn’t even imagine that I could win it; I had a pretty tough draw,” Safina said.
Safina said it was an excellent feeling to win another title after she was forced out of the game late last year with fatigue.
”I was a little bit disappointed at the end of the year,” she said.
”I had two months off practising hard and I’m really happy that the hard work paid off.”
Hingis said she had her chances to win but just couldn’t convert them.
”There were just too many opportunities I wasn’t able to take,” she said. ”Those are the things you have to be able to do against players like her.
”I had my chances — it’s not like she blew me away.” — AFP