Sunday Gathering, 12.28

Hi everyone. Still on the theme of "Moments of 2008", I got to thinking after yesterday's post featuring Marat Safin that in lieu of inflicting yet another image of Feliciano Lopez on the TWibe, we should look again at the women's game. Coincidentally, I visualised today's "moment" before recalling that Dinara Safina is Marat's sister. She had something of a breakthrough year in 2008.

The picture above was taken just after Dinara wrapped up her straight-sets semifinal victory over Svetlana Kuznetsova at Roland Garros, to secure a place in a Grand Slam final for the first time. With Ana Ivanovic joining Safina in the final, we already knew at that stage that we would see a new Grand Slam singles champion on the final Saturday.

Safina reached seven finals in 2008, including the Olympics, and won four tournaments, but some of her most notable performances were seen in Paris, where her victims also included Maria Sharapova (then ranked number one) and Elena Dementieva. During her match against Sharapova in the fourth round (after which a section of the crowd booed Sharapova off the court), Safina came back from 2-5 down in the second set, and a match point at 3-5, before taking that set's tiebreaker. She eventually emerged the winner 6-7 (6-8) 7-6 (7-5) 6-2. In the quarterfinal that followed, against Elena Dementieva, Safina also saved a match point during the second-set tiebreak.

Enjoy the rest of today.

-- Rosangel Valenti