Dinara Safina, of Russia, lunges to return a shot to Flavia Pennetta, of Italy, during their quarterfinal match at the U.S. Open tennis tournament in New York, Wednesday, Sept. 3, 2008.
Photo: AP
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Impressive Safina Determined to Reach Same Thing As Brother
Russia's Dinara Safina easily saw off Flavia Penetta of Italy at the U.S. Open tennis tournament at Flushing Meadows in New York to advance to the semifinals. Dinara plays eight-time Grand Slam winner Serena Williams today. In the men's section, ATP No. 1 Rafael Nadal progressed to the semis to continue his U.S. Open campaign with Andy Murray of Britain.
The previous match of Dinara, the one where she prevailed over Anna-Lena Groenefeld of Germany, didn't inspire optimism about her chances for further advance. Safina said she hadn't wanted to play, as she had been totally exhausted. But impressive Russian evidently recovered before the battle vs. Italy's Flavia Pennetta. Safina broke the Italian 6-2 6-3 and progressed to her first U.S. Open semifinals.
I'm getting closer to reaching the same thing as my brother, Safina said after the match. Dinara is the sister of 2000 U.S. Open champion Marat Safin. For her, Dinara said, the main thing is to concentrate and play up, and with whom to play it doesn't matter actually.
But it matters for the crowd, of course. Safina next plays Serena Williams, who prevailed over her sister Venus in the quarterfinal thriller. Both sisters were equal but Serena was very lucky that day.
Another semifinal is between Olympic champion and fifth seed Elena Dementieva of Russia and second seed Jelena Jankovic of Serbia.
In the men's section, ATP No. 1 Rafael Nadal defeated Mardy Fish of the U.S. and reached the U.S. Open semis, which is now his best result at Flushing Meadows. Nadal faces the British hope Andy Murray, who overwhelmed Juan Martin Del Potro of Argentina in four sets.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Sep. 05, 2008
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