Safina blasts way in final

Dinara Mikhailovna Safina is one of Russian professional tennis player.she is ranked World No. 1 by the Women's Tennis Association in 27 april,2009. She has been two times runner-up in two Grand Slam singles tournaments and won the women's doubles title at the 2007 US Open with Nathalie Dechy. Her one of best achievement at 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing where she got silver medal in women's singles. She is the younger sister of former World No. 1 men's player Marat Safin.
Dinara Safina blasted her way into the French Open final for the second year in a row on Thursday by outgunning Dominika Cibulkova of Slovakia 6-3, 6-3.

Safina lost in the final of the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix in Stuttgart to Svetlana Kuznetsova of Russia and Samantha Stosur of Australia.Some of her opponents say that she is not worthy of being the world No.1 until she does so.

Cibulkova, at 1.61 metres a full 21 centimetres smaller than her opponent, got off to the perfect start breaking Safina's serve in the opening game and holding her own for a 2-0 lead.Safina bounced back immediately through winning five games in a row including two breaks of serve to reassert her authority.

It was clearly a case of Safina's power-hitting down both flanks against Cibulkova's movement about court and tactical guile with most games going to several deuces.

The youngest of the four semi-finalists at 20 years old, Cibulkova staved off a set point to hold her own serve and she had Safina muttering away to herself in the next game after she opened it with a double fault.

But the Russian steadied the ship and took a one-set lead in 49 minutes thanks to a barrage of shots that had Cibulkova scampering about from side to side in a effort to stay with her.

The Slovak held serve to open the second set and then had two break points in the following game, but failed to take them as two unforced errors allowed Safina to get back to deuce.

The Russian held and three games later she grabbed a vital break of serve when an under-pressure Cibulkova netted a tame backhand.

Safina though struggled once again on her following serve and had to save three break points before moving into a 4-2 lead.