Dinara Safina survived a marathon battle against Camille Pin to reach the quarter-finals of the 600,000-dollar Paris Indoor Open on Wednesday.
PARIS: Seventh seed Dinara Safina survived a marathon battle against Camille Pin to reach the quarter-finals of the 600,000-dollar Paris Indoor Open on Wednesday.
Safina recovered from dropping the opening set to win this second round clash 2-6, 6-2, 7-6 (7/5) in just under two and a quarter hours of gripping contest.
The players were afforded a richly deserved standing ovation after the final point as the power of Safina finally cracked the guile of Pin.
An upset looked on the cards as the world number 75 Frenchwoman stormed the first set against her number 12-ranked Russian opponent.
Safina had initially looked likely to run away with the match but Pin doggedly stuck to her game plan of keeping the ball in play and forcing her bigger, stronger opponent to keep hitting the ball.
But while that worked against the notoriously brittle Safina, sister of former men's world number one Marat Safin, in the first set, in the second, Pin was simply blown away.
Come the third, Pin's greater consistency and fewer unforced errors seemed to be gaining the upper hand. Three times she broke to move in front but on each occasion Safina blasted her off the court in her next service game.
It came down to a final set tie-break and Safina quickly opened up a lead. When she moved to 6-3, it all seemed over.
Pin saved the first two match points and was all set to save the third as well when a cruel twist of luck denied her. Having run Safina out of court, she advanced to put away a winning forehand, only to see the ball clip the top of the net and skew off into the tram line.
In earlier first round contests, eighth seeded Russian Anna Chakvetadze thrashed compatriot Olga Poutchkova 6-2, 6-0.
She next faces Spain's Anabel Medina Garrigues who beat France's Severine Bremond 6-2, 7-5 despite trailing 5-1 in the second set.
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