Dinara Safina books a semi-final berth at the 2011 Grand Prix De SAR
Former world number one Dinara Safina defeated compatriot Anastasia Pivovarova 6-4, 2-6, 6-4 on Friday to reach the semi-final at the 2011 Grand Prix SAR La Princesse Lalla Meryem in Morocco. Safina’s semi-final opponent will
be Italian Alberta Brianti who thrashed out Melanie Oudin of United States in the quarterfinal.
The running season has proved to be a mixed bag of highs and lows for the Russian tennis star Dinara Safina. She started the year with the first round loss at 2011 Auckland. Then at the 2011 Australian Open, she fell to number
three seed Kim Clijsters in her opening match at the tournament. She restored some of the lost pride at the 2011 BNP Paribas Open where she reached the fourth round. Andalucia Tennis Experience also resulted in a failure for the Safina as she was thrashed
out in the first round.
This will be the first WTA semi-final appearance for the Safina in the running season and she will be hoping to change the course of her career by lifting her first WTA title of the year. The 24-year-old is a clear favourite for
her semi-final clash against Alberta Brianti however consistency is going to be the key in the battle of nerves.
Safina started the match on a positive note breaking the serve in second game of the opening set. She held on to her serve games and created a number of break point chances on return with some crafty tennis display. Leading the
score at 5-4, she clinched four straight points on her serve to pocket the opener 6-4.
Pivovarova regrouped herself and came up with a brilliant plan to down her opponent in the following set. Her serve was her real asset as she fired 4 serve aces in the set. She also converted the break chances and soon found herself
leading the game score by 5-2. The 19-year-old Pivovarova claimed the next game on her serve to level the set score 1-1.
Both players fought hard in the final set as serve breaks were traded. Safina stuck to her strengths and used her backhand and forehand shots to great effect. She adopted an aggressive baseline strategy and created inconvenient
angles for the challenger wide of the court. The Russian also played in the chip shot every now and then to surprise her opponent.
Safina serve was extremely accurate as she achieved an impressive 81 per cent first serve conversion. She also claimed 56 per cent of the points on return that proved to be the main difference between the two contestants at the
end.
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