Erratic Safina scrapes past tricky Lisicki
Dinara Safina scrapes past Sabine Lisicki in Wimbledon quarter-final
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Tuesday, 30, Jun 2009 03:54
By James Christie.
Top seed Dinara Safina served an astonishing 15 double faults but still defeated teenager Sabine Lisicki 6-7 6-4 6-1 in the Wimbledon quarter-finals on a sunny Centre Court today.
Safina barely hit a single down-the-centre-line serve on target the whole match and it was a double fault which gave Lisicki a quick break for 2-1 early on.
The opening stages of the match saw both players hitting fluky net cord shots with some regularity - Lisicki good-humouredly smiling regardless of whether she won the point or not.
The more moody Safina managed a smile of her own a short while later having come up with the worst serve of the championships - landing right in the middle of the wrong service box.
In such form it was a surprise that she managed to break back at just the right time with Lisicki serving at 5-4 for the first set.
Groundstrokes which had been finding the spot for the German minutes earlier were now hitting the net tape, encouraging her opponent to continue swinging furiously from the hip.
It's the only game she seems to know but it was good enough to take her into the tie break but could take her no further in the opening set as Lisicki recovered her form to start winning the longer rallies again.
Not that it was just groundstrokes and finely angled returns which were winning the lower-ranked player points - some mid-court volleys and 120mph aces were also moving the score on in her favour.
She blew two set points on her own serve but Safina helped her out with another double. Set to Lisicki, 7-5 in the tiebreak.
Safina carried on where she left off in the first set, dropping serve immediately with a double fault. A warning for racket abuse was issued while Lisicki was still shaking her fist in celebration.
It proved premature as Safina started to (legitimately) abuse the ball, instantly putting the game back on serve and breaking again in game seven en route to winning the set 6-4.
There were three consecutive breaks of serve when the action resumed but crucially the world number one achieved two of them.
A 4-1 Safina lead became 5-1 with Lisicki using her professional prerogative to have a medical time-out in between games.
The final set's 6-1 scoreline was more than a little flattering for the top seed.
But just as her tennis outfit exposed her navel, her play exposed her one-dimensional play, some wayward execution of shots and some often-woeful serving. Semi-final opponent Venus Williams could well reveal further flaws.