Dinara Safina : Heart of a warrior

Even with an US Open doubles title and a French Open singles final, Dinara Safina started 2009 still as "Marat's little sister". With a burning desire of beeing known as "Dinara, the tennis player", she started to play another tennis, a champion's tennis. She had a strong start of the year, reaching the Australian Open final. Then she continued the good winnings, reaching the French Open final and the Wimbledon semifinals. The best results came on clay. Dinara won the title of two Premier tournaments, at Madrid and Rome. And all the work was crowned by achieving the 1st ranking, dethroning the current 'Queen of Tennis', Serena Williams. This way, she began to be known for her game too, not only for her last name. But a mix of injuries and inconsistent matches made her fall back to the 2nd position. At the US Open she dragged to the 3rd round, where she lost to an unknown Czech young girl, Petra Kvitova.

This year's start was not very bad for Dinara. She reached the 4th round at Australian Open, but she had to retire against Maria Kirilenko, due an old back injury. This was the beginning of a meltdown. After loosing in a few tournaments in the 1st or the 2nd round and being thrown on the 70th position, the saving competition appeared. At Rogers Cup she reached the 3rd round, winning two important matches, against Andrea Petkovic and the fellow Russian Nadia Petrova. In the 3rd round she faced the French Open champion, Francesca Schiavone. Just four days after this loss, Dinara got a chance for revenge against Francesca, in the first round at New Haven. She converted it. Her next opponent will be Daniela Hantuchova.

After a long hard year, Dinara Safina doesn't give up, fights like a warrior and scores victory over a 2010 Grand Slam champion. Her fans, including me, are waiting to see their favourite's next move, hoping she will follow the steps of her brother and mentor, Marat Safin.

Davai, Dinara!