Why Dinara Safina is Going to Win the French Open

At first glance, this is not much of a prediction. It’s hardly going out on a limb to say that the world number one, who has just won two clay titles in a row and made the final in a third, will win at Roland Garros. Hey, I’m also tipping Nadal in the men’s if you’re interested…

Grand Slams however are different beasts. There’s an extra round compared with most tournaments, two in fact if you are in the top eight in the world and are used to getting a bye in the first round.

The matches are stretched out over fifteen days (particularly with the dreaded “Le Sunday Start” at the French, which almost did for Venus and Maria in the two years since it’s introduction), with plenty of waiting in between as opposed to the Wednesday-thru-Sunday routine at the other tournaments.

Winning a Slam takes some doing and usually requires a special kind of player – which is why the Williams sisters have won the last three between them and a total of 17 lifetime. Usually, I’d never back anyone other than those two to win any given Slam, particularly with Sharapova barely back from injury and Henin retired – the only two recent players with the temperament to do it.

And of course Dinara’s temperament has been what has let her down in the past. She lost last year’s Roland Garros final by dint of making more mistakes than Ana Ivanovic, described her performance against Serena in Australia this year as that of “a ball girl” and lost an Olympic final into the bargain, all in the space of just over six months.

At least that gave her the bridesmaid tag to alternate with that of “sister of you-know-who” – a permanent topic of conversation in press conferences from those journalists who still think that it is acceptable to ask male players questions about whatever soccer tournament is going on at the time and female players about where they are going to go shopping in Rome/Paris/London/insert name of city here…

Until she got to Rome this year, I was unconvinced of Dinara’s pedigree. Good player, sure. World No1? Why not. She’s as good as anyone else up there on her day, but that unfortunately is damning her, and the rest of the top 10, with faint praise.

And then she found herself 5-2 down in the third set of her third round match with Jie Zheng. Every time she raised her arm to serve, a little demon seemed to whisper in her ear: “You’re not good enough. You don’t deserve to be No1. You shouldn’t be here”. And yet she won, and the day after Serena has also been off form and yet ended up being taken to the cleaners by journeywoman Patty Schnyder. Dinara didn’t – she battled it out, and lived to fight another day.

Not that this was the turning point, however. You could tell in the post-match press conference (where there was thankfully no talk of either Marat or Rome shoe boutiques) that she was in a state of inner turmoil. “It’s a completely different person playing on court”, “I just don’t understand”, “What is it with my brain?” “Too frustrating and too sad” were part of the stream of consciousness that poured out, but it was followed up with “I have to be stronger – I know what I have to do”. The determination was there…

The following day, it looked like being deja vu all over again as she took three sets to beat another unheralded opponent, Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez. The decider was one-way traffic however – a bagel in fact – and Safina came off the court all smiles as opposed to near tears as she was the day before. “I can win when I’m not at my best”, her demeanour said. And when she was at her best, she could also win, and boy did she prove it in a semi-final match for the ages on the Friday, defeating Venus 6-7, 6-3, 6-4 in a tie which ebbed and flowed until Dinara stepped up to the plate and put it away after three hours on court.

Venus may not like clay as much as other surfaces but she and Serena are still the opponents that everyone wants to beat at the start of any tournament, and the elder of the two sisters was rounding nicely into form at just the right time. She played a great match – Dinara was simply greater.

The final the following day was a mere formality. Though she had beaten Safina a mere six days earlier to take the Stuttgart crown, there was no way that Svetlana Kuznetsova – arguably a true clay specialist – was going to stand in her fellow Russian’s way this time around. Kuznetsova’s unforced error count was twice, three times what it should have been, and now the shoe was on the other foot – Safina was making her opponents quake in their boots before they came on court and not the other way round…

Perhaps what convinced me the most was seeing Dinara on the practice courts that week. Zelkjo Krajan stood in the corner of the deuce court and a hitting partner in the corner of the ad court, and Safina proceeded to belt the ball left and right, left and right, until invariably one of the men fluffed his shot.

In the second or two it took coach Krajan to get another ball from his pocket, Dina would do her little “left-right-left” trot on her toes, but the look on her face was one of sheer, unbridled focus. She actually seemed to flair her nostrils and grunt like a stallion as she waited. And those eyes: we’ve all seen them as she tosses the ball up to serve – brown, piercing, round as saucers, as if she’s holding the ball in the air like a magician. She has the talent, the strength, the determination, and now she has the belief and the confidence to go with it.

Safina to win the French. Get her on a double with Nadal to take the men’s title and the Harlem Globetrotters to win their next match – it’s a sure thing. And when she wins, I’m darn sure I’m going to ask Marat next time he’s in a post-match conference whether he texted his sister after she won, if he’s in awe of her and whether he gets on well with her string of boyfriends…

Drew Lilley will be writing and blogging for www.rolandgarros.com and www.wimbledon.org.