NEW YORK – It was just 365 days ago that Dinara Safina came into the US Open Tennis Championships as the number one player in the world. Kim Clijsters, on the other hand, was just returning from a two-year retirement that saw her get married and give birth to a daughter.
One year later, Clijsters showed up at America’s premier tennis event as the defending champion. Safina, on the other hand, was relegated to the lesser of three show courts, the Grandstand, where she faced a seeded player, number 24 Daniel Hantuchova.
Clijsters displayed the game that makes her one of the favorites to win the US Open for the third time, crushing Greta Arn of Hungary 6-0 7-5.
Safina, her last 12 months hampered by injuries and self-doubt, found no solace on the hard courts of the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center and was eliminated by her Slovakian foe 6-3 6-4.
“Everybody has to work hard to win a Grand Slam, and that’s what I’m going to try to do: give it my best and not focus on other things that I don’t have control of,” Clijsters said. “You know, I just want to make sure that I try and play my best tennis when I have to and try to win my matches.”
Clijsters actually is going for her third consecutive US Open crown. After winning the title in 2005, beating Mary Pierce in the final, she missed the next year with an injury. The Belgian retired before the 2007 US Open, got married to American basketball player Brian Lynch and gave birth to their daughter Jada in February 2008.
Last year’s event was only her third tournament back on the WTA Tour and she became the first unranked player to win the title since the computer rankings were introduced in 1975. She also was the first wild-card entry to win a Grand Slam tournament, and the first mother to do so since Evonne Goolagong Cawley captured Wimbledon in 1960.
“For these last few weeks already preparing for the Open I’ve been trying to get my game back,” said Clijsters, who suffered a foot injury in Belgium’s Fed Cup World Group victory over Estonia. She missed the French Open and a clay court tournament in Madrid, Spain, because of the injury. “But just to come out there and defending my title, I think I’ve never been in that position. I was just excited to go out there.”
There had been complaints about Safina rising to the world’s number one ranking without having won a Grand Slam tournament. But her supporters responded by noting her consistency and her strong record against the other top players.
Since last year, her only consistency has been in losing. But it hasn’t all been poor play.
Safina reached the quarterfinals in the season-opening tournament in Sydney, Australia. Then, at the Australian Open, she had to retire from her fourth-round match due to a recurrence of a lower back injury. She had to withdraw from Wimbledon, while a series of first-round defeats have plummeted her ranking to number 50 in the world.
Her bad luck continued at the US Open draw when she was paired to meet a seeded player.
Safina had won six of their nine career meetings before Monday’s clash, and the last four. But all Hantuchova had to do was keep the ball in play and Safina would eventually make an error.
Even with the defeat, Safina became the 19th player on the women’s tour to pass the USD $10 million prize money mark.
Form held in the day matches, with only 27th-seeded Fernando Gonzalez of Chile being the only “favored” player to be ousted. But Gonzalez retired with a knee injury while trailing Ivan Dodig of Croatia 6-7 (2) 6-1 1-0. Gonzalez has struggled with knee problems all year and was playing in only his second tournament after being sidelined since Wimbledon.
First-day winners on the men’s side included Nikolay Davydenko of Russia, Gael Monfils of France, American Andy Roddick, Sweden’s Robin Soderling, Marin Cilic of Croatia and Spain’s Juan Carlos Ferrero and Albert Montanes.
Among the seeded women winners were Francesca Schiavone of Italy, Alona Bondarenko of the Ukraine; Shahar Peer of Israel, Petra Kvitova of the Czech Republic, and Russians Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, Alisa Kleybanova and Elena Dementieva.