Day - 13

KUZNETSOVA WINS RUSSIAN ROULETTE IN PARIS

Svetlana Kuznetsova upset top seed Dinara Safina in the final of the French Open to claim her second major tennis championship here on Saturday. Almost five years after winning the US Open in New York, the seventh-seeded Kuznetsova defeated Safina 6-4, 6-2 in an all-Russian final at Roland Garros.

This is the Russian’s second career Grand Slam after her US Open triumph.

Watched by six-time French Open winner Steffi Graf, Kuznetsova crossed herself and ran off the court to embrace family and friends after she won.

“She’s better than me at the moment, but I was better than her today,” Kuznetsova said after the match. “She was tired.”

Saturday’s defeat at a cloudy Roland Garros left Safina empty-handed in a Grand Slam final for the third time as she tried to join her brother, former US and Australian Open champion Marat Safin, as a winner of major titles.

The 23-year-old Russian took over the top spot of the WTA Tour’s singles rankings from reigning US Open and Australian Open winner Serena Williams on April 20. She also lost the past two major finals she played. Ana Ivanovic of Serbia beat her last year at Roland Garros, while Williams won in the Australian Open final this season. Kuznetsova won her first major as a 19-year-old in 2004 and finished runner-up to Justine Henin at the 2006 French Open and 2007 US Open.

Kuznetsova is the only player to beat Safina on clay this season, having now done it twice. She beat the top-ranked player in straight sets in the final of a claycourt tournament in Stuttgart, a warmup event for the French Open. Safina beat Kuznetsova in the Rome final the week after that.

TIGHT MATCHES

After beating Samantha Stosur of Australia in the semifinals, Kuznetsova told reporters that to succeed against Safina, “I have to move her around definitely,” she added.

In the past two weeks in Paris, Kuznetsova said, she had learned to enjoy playing tight matches. When asked what the main thing was she would be doing during Saturday’s final, Kuznetsova said: “Just go out there and enjoy it.”

Kuznetsova prevented Williams from winning her third consecutive Grand Slam title by beating the secondranked American in the quarterfinals in three sets.

Safina lost only five games in the first four rounds. Her only three-set match was in the quarterfinals, when she came back from a set down against Victoria Azarenka of Belarus.

Kuznetsova said her youth in Russia shaped her character and helped her become a Grand Slam champion.

“I believe it’s just tough mentally and a hard situation we went through after we grew up in Russia, because we didn’t have possibilities to play,” she said. “No sponsors, nothing.”

WORK HARDER

She sometimes practiced in sub-zero weather or had to share a bedroom with other players while on the road.

“These things make you work harder,” she said.

The two women have known each other since they were 12 years old and competed together in Russia. “She was a funny girl,” Safina told reporters earlier this week. “I remember her coming to the match with a two-litre Pepsi. It was like, ‘No way she can be one day like winning Grand Slam.’”

Things improved when Kuznetsova and her family, with some help from Safina’s mother, a tennis coach, moved to Spain.

“She changed completely,” Safina said.