Safina Looking to Improve

From The Telegraph: Safina has old guard in sights

Being the sister of Marat Safin, it was perhaps understandable that Dinara Safina should believe it when everyone around her told her that success would come as a matter of course. Naturally, it didn't. There never has and never will be a substitute for hard work, no matter how good the pedigree or how great the talent, and now it's beginning to pay off, to such an extent that Martina Hingis recently predicted she could even eclipse her two-time grand slam-winning brother. Safina will take that with a pinch of salt also...

"Everyone should watch her because she's going to be maybe even better than her brother," said Hingis after losing to Safina in the final of the Australian Women's Hardcourt Championship on the Gold Coast last week. "She doesn't have as much touch, but she has more will and desire."

It was, as Safina said, "a nice compliment" — providing she meant it. "I hope she was honest to me. She might really see something inside of me, so now I just have to discover it myself."

It was the home truths of a little-known Russian coach, Alexandr Zlatoustov, that had the greatest effect upon Safina, now coached by Glen Schaap. She had followed in her brother's footsteps to Barcelona at a formative stage of her career, but having reached the top 50 of the Sony Ericsson Tour her career plateaued two years ago.

"I thought it was going to be much easier, that things would come by themselves," the 20-year-old said. "I had not wrong people but wrong opinions around me, telling everything will come. But then I had a Russian coach who explained everything to me, who opened my eyes.

"I asked him, 'What's going on? Why aren't I playing so good?' He asked me, 'Do you really think you're giving 100 per cent in practice?' I said, 'I think so'. He told me, 'I think you can do more'. It was tough for me to change but I understood if I want to be up there I have to change."

Work ethic has always been something which set the Russian women apart, even if the men, Safina says, are mentally "a little bit weak". She wasn't, of course, referring to her temperamental brother, but if Safin had had some of the desire that his sister now has he might have done a lot more in his career, which is what Hingis was alluding to...

Comments

[Starbuko]

Of course, Hingis was being honest, especially about the part that Safina doesn't have as much touch as Safin.

[safinisawesome]

safina is great and is getting better and better. shes already #10 and she seems to really want to continue to improve. hopefully by the end of the year she might even be able to get in to the year-end championships :)