Dinara Safina breaks six-match losing streak
Former world No. 1 Dinara Safina has ended her six-match losing streak with a 6-1 7-6(2) victory over Alona Bondarenko at the Mercury Insurance Open in San Diego.
Safina entered the tournament without a win to her name since her opening match at the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix in Stuttgart, having most recently sacrificed a one-set lead over 39-year-old Kimiko Date Krumm at the Bank of the West Classic in Stanford to lose the first round match in three sets.
In San Diego, however, the Russian delivered a strong performance to dominate from the baseline in the opening set and then fight back from a 3-1 deficit in the second to cling on for the win in the second set tiebreak.
After a breakout year in 2009, where Safina held the No. 1 ranking for six months, reached two Grand Slam finals, won three WTA titles and was runner-up in three more, a chronic back injury has brought the 24-year-old’s 2010 to a grinding halt.
Safina played through the problem in the latter stages of last season before the injury forced her to retire just two games into her opening match of the 2009 WTA Tour Championships, and after a less than ideal preparation for the Australian Open, broke down with a recurrence of the injury in the fourth round.
The world No. 35 returned to competition in Stuttgart after three months on the sidelines but has struggled to recapture the form that took her to the top of the rankings last year in the tournaments she’s played since.
Safina’s ability to maintain her power game across an entire match is set to again be tested the second round, where a potential match with ever consistent Agnieszka Radwanska looms.
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