Down the line: Safina’s resilience will be lasting legacy

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  • Contrasting fortunes: Dinara Safina (c) has brought her career to a premature end after a long-running battle with injuries.

    As Maria Sharapova was crowned champion in Madrid on Sunday, another Russian former world No1, was officially saying her goodbyes to the WTA Tour – Dinara Safina.

    Three years after playing her final match before succumbing to nagging back problems that brought her career to a premature end, Safina was finally ready to announce what we had already known for a long time – that she was officially hanging up her racquets.

    She chose Madrid to have her farewell ceremony, a city where she won in 2009, where she played her final match on tour and in a country where she lived for 12 years.

    As Sharapova paid tribute to her compatriot before giving her victory speech in the Spanish capital, you couldn’t help but get emotional over the contrasting fortunes of the two Russians.

    Safina is barely one year older than Sharapova and as they both shared the same stage on Sunday, one was celebrating her 31st title triumph while the other was admitting her final tennis match came three years ago when she was just 25.

     Safina may have surrendered to her injuries in the end, but her legacy will forever be one of resilience and triumph.

    After establishing herself as a top-20 player, Safina revolutionised herself both physically and mentally to step outside the shadow of her charismatic and Grand Slam-winning brother Marat Safin and hit the ground running in 2008 before reaching the No1 ranking in 2009.

    In those two seasons she made three Grand Slam finals, won seven of her 12 titles including Berlin – where she beat Justine Henin, Serena Williams, Victoria Azarenka and Elena Dementieva back-to-back – and took Olympic silver.

    Her most memorable fights came in the 2008 French Open when she fought back from a set and 2-5 down against the-then world No1 Sharapova in the fourth round before staging a comeback from the exact same score line two days later against Elena Dementieva.

    It’s a shame such grit was never rewarded with a major title but Safina undoubtedly game us two seasons of hard-hitting women’s tennis we’ll never forget.

    And to think that her biggest triumph – becoming world No1 – was consistently accompanied by criticism from pundits who claimed she wasn’t worthy having not won a Slam.

    She took all that in her stride as well.

    In a career that was cut short, Safina may not have reached her maximum potential, but she sure achieved more than a world of athletes can claim to have achieved.

    For 26 weeks, she was on top of the world rankings. Only 11 other women have been there longer. People like Steffi Graf, Martina Navratilova and Serena Williams.

    She bids farewell with her legend safely lying in the best of company.

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