By Blair Henley
Dinara Safina added another epic collapse to her French Open resume, but this time it was in the first round against 39-year-old Kimiko Date Krumm instead of the final.
Safina, who just split with coach Zeljko Krajan, was up two breaks at 4-1 in the third set when her veteran opponent took an injury timeout for an already heavily taped calf. Date Krumm proceeded to reel off four straight games before finishing off the two-time finalist 3-6, 6-4, 7-5.
“I am very sad for her, very happy for me,” Date-Krumm said humbly. “I just tried.”
Date-Krumm spent 12 years in retirement before making a comeback in 2008. She is the second oldest female ever to win a match at the French Open, and celebrated by tearfully kissing her German race car driver husband, Michael Krumm, in the stands. Virginia Wade of Britain was three months older than Date when she won her last French Open singles match.
Four-time French Open champion, Justine Henin, overcame some serve tightness to beat hard hitting Bulgarian Tsvetana Pironkova 6-4, 6-3 and extend her unbeaten streak at Roland Garros to 22 matches. Her record is a Nadal-like 31-1 dating back to 2003.
“I didn’t know really what to expect and how I was going to deal with my emotions,” she said. “As I walked in and I was into my match, I felt a lot of things were coming back. It was just fantastic to share this again with the crowd, as they gave me one more time great support. So it was very good to be back.”
Henin is likely the most-feared No. 22 seed the tournament has ever seen. Despite reaching the final at the Australian Open and winning in Stuttgart last month, the Belgian has not played enough matches since coming out of her 20-month retirement to guarantee her a top spot.
Lucky loser Bethanie Mattek-Sands and her trademark knee socks easily took out fellow American Vania King 6-2, 6-2. No. 18 seed, Shahar Peer advanced along with No. 13 Marion Bartoli, No. 16 Yanina Wickmayer, No. 21 Vera Zvonereva, No. 23 Daniela Hantuchova, No. 25 Jie Zheng and No. 29 Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.