Safina closes in on big brother

Greg HEAKES

Dinara Safina, who is trying to follow in her brother’s footsteps and win her first Grand Slam title at a US Open, defeated Flavia Pennetta 6-2, 6-3 in the quarter-finals on Wednesday.

Russian sixth seed Safina, who reached her first Grand Slam final earlier this year at the French Open, says winning the US Open would put a fitting exclamation point on her season.

“It’s great,” Safina said. “I’m getting closer to reaching the same thing as my brother. I just hope that one day I can have the same title.”

Big brother Marat Safin won the US Open men’s title in 2000. Safina, 22, who will face either Serena or Venus Williams in the semi-finals, continued her domination of Pennetta, raising her career record over the Italian to 5-0.

Wednesday’s win on the main Arthur Ashe Stadium was also a repeat of this season’s Los Angeles final which Safina won in straight sets 6-4, 6-2.

The six-foot-one Safina needed just 71 minutes to reach her first US Open semi-final in seven tries as she closed out the match on her second match point when Pennetta hit a backhand long.

On Monday, an exhausted Safina had to be coaxed onto the court by her coach Zeljko Krajan to play her fourth round match against Anna-Lena Groenefeld. She was in a much better frame of mind on Wednesday.“Finally I am happy with myself because I did what I had to do,” Safina said. “I was aggressive on the court. I was following balls every time. Today I finally played my game.” Safina has had a breakthrough season in 2008, winning three titles and reaching the final of six of her past seven tournaments, including a runners-up spot at the Beijing Olympics.

“It’s tough to beat someone when they don’t make mistakes and make a lot of winners,” Pennetta said. “I was fighting until the final. For me it was very important to just stay in there and try until the last point.”

Pennetta, seeded 16th, won two singles titles this year in Vina del Mar and Acapulco, Mexico.

At the 2008 French Open, she upset Venus Williams to reach the fourth round for the first time before losing to Spain’s Carla Suarez Navarro.

Safina laughed when asked if she was concerned about playing one of the Williams sisters in front of a partisan New York crowd on Friday. “After being in China and playing two times against the Chinese?” she said of the Beijing Games where she won the silver medal.

NEW YORK, Thursday AFP