Dinara Safina Wins Slovenia Open 2009
Dinara Safina fought hard to win her first Slovenia Open WTA tournament against Sara Errani with the final score of 6-7, 6-1, 7:5.
Dinara Safina wins Slovenian Open 2009 / Photo by HRVOJE POLAN/AFP/Getty Images
Errani proved to be an extremely tough nut to crack as she played Nadal style by looping high top spin shots on her forehand and hitting fast flat shots on her backhand. She is also very fast and brings back more balls than most girls on the tour.
This made Safina go for more and more and eventually she would aim too close to the lines and play too fast and the unforced errors count was going higher and higher.
Safina requested coaching a few times in the match and Zeljko Krajan, her coach, was telling her a few interesting tactical choices. The Slovenian TV was broadcasting his coaching on TV so we could her what he was saying.
He wanted Safina to get out of the backhand cross court rallies with Errani and play soon to Errani forehand (by playing down the line) from which she would most likely get a shorter higher ball which Safina could take inside the court and hit on the rise.
He also told Dinara to hit fast if Errani comes to the net and avoid playing short angles and trying to outplay Errani with some touch passing shots.
This was the part I liked.
The part that I didn’t like was the criticizing part where Zeljko repeated a few times to Dinara about her previous missed attempts of touch passing shots which didn’t work.
Something like:«How many times you have to miss or lose points like to this to get it?«
Criticizing a woman during a tennis match is NOT a good idea. Once the emotions take over with women it’s very very hard for them to get back into ideal performance state.
But for a man coach it’s hard to realize that women respond differently to criticism than men. For men a critique can be a challenge. For women, a critique is a painful emotion and they barely hear what the actual instruction may be if it follows.
He also advised her to be even more aggressive and attack the ball earlier which is very dangerous to suggest to a girl in the match because girls in my experience take these instruction literally. Safina did exactly that and started forcing the game so much that she was missing every second ball.
One ball went in and it was a winner and the second one was a miss. Safina plays the ball hard enough already and she might take it a bit earlier but I definitely wouldn’t tell her to be even more aggressive and hit harder because I might imagine that she would hit harder 5% and she might interpret my words by hitting harder 20% – which is way too much.
Another comment that shows how far Dinara is still far from champion thinking and what she actually needs to focus on was :«I don’t want to lose this match.« She told this to Krajan during her coaching time.
Zeljko told her not to panic as her panic is causing her to lose and not her game which is true but it’s still so surprising to hear that even the #1 player in the world focuses on completely wrong things during the match which cause her to be even more anxious.
Winning or losing is not within the player’s control and any time a player focuses on something that she cannot control it will cause more nerves and lower her performance.
A player can only control the effort and which tactics she chooses to play.
So Dinara would have to focus on the playing patterns which bring her more success and give her best. That’s it. Everything else it out of her control.
Sara Errani played her best match by far in this tournament and was actually serving for the match at 5:4 in the third set. But in my opinion she served too many serves to Safina’s backhand which is her main weapon (and she rarely misses it) and when she came to the net she attempted too fancy shots (and she is not skilled enough to pull them off) instead of going for a nice, deep volley into open space.
Safina adjusted slightly in the last 3 games from 4:5 down and Errani made just a few more unforced errors than earlier in the set and Safina then won by 7:5 in the third.
It was great to see Safina in Slovenia and I hope the organizers can get a few more higher ranked girls to play here next year so that the tournament will be more interesting in the earlier stages and that we’ll see more of the high quality tennis as we saw in today’s final.
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July 28th, 2009 at 2:09 pm
The most interesting part of the article was that Safina said that she didn’t want to lose to her coach.
One the big criticisms of Safina in the U.S. is that even though she is #1 she still hasn’t won a Grandslam. One argument is that Serena should be #1 because of her consistent amount of Grandslam wins.
Probably the reason why Serena does and has done better then Safina in recent Grandslam matches is because of her mental attitude. During an interview she said that she puts cards in her tennis bag with positive messages that she reads during a match such as “you can do this”, “you are the best”, “You can win this match”.
The key difference is that Safina focuses on “not losing” while Serena has the belief that she can win in key pressure situations.
Serena was able to build this amount of confidence and attitude in herself throughout her career, hopefully Safina can do the same
-Nick
August 5th, 2009 at 2:42 pm
Hi
Nice analysis – but the view of female/male tolerance for critisism are old fashioned. I know plenty of women who take critisism well and men who cant handle it. I will go as far as saying that your point is true to a minor degree, ie more men can handle critisism, but far from as absolute as you put it.
Maybe there is a difference in our respective countries on this point; in Denmark women have been in the work force for generations, and have thus hardened towards critisism and conflict. I suspect Slovenia and Russia (of Safina) are later developed in that respects – but that may be my prejudice?
BTW, I was in Portoroz and saw the semis – great stadium and setting, I regret I didnt stay for the final.
August 5th, 2009 at 3:32 pm
Hi Thomas,
There’s a difference between constructive criticism and negative criticism.
Krajan could have said:”Passing with a nice touch shot is wrong, don’t do it. Rather, pass with a hard hit shot.” This includes criticism but it’s just feedback on what doesn’t work. It’s doesn’t label Safina with anything.
But Zeljko said:”How many times do you have to miss to figure out that passing with a touch shot doesn’t work?” In other words, he is telling Safina that she is stupid. I can’t see how that has any benefits especially since if she believes that (and she does, as he is the authority there), she cannot change being stupid.
She can change something by learning something new. But if you’re stupid, your stuck with your own stupidity forever. Then how can she win a Grand Slam if she believes that she is stupid? How can she be confident if she believes that she is stupid?
Trust me, women “get” this and do it much better than men. So it depends what kind of criticism they receive…
August 5th, 2009 at 10:57 pm
The relationship between Safina and her coach, in my opinion, is definitely problematic, and I have heard it being pointed out by a few commentators.
During the match Krajan is never seen with a smile, and is almost always deathly disaproving, while Safina constantly glances at him for support or approval between points. Safina is already one of the most emotionally tensed players who worked hard to get to where she is, but also is often down on herself to the point of self destruction during important matches.
She should be focusing on the points being played, not doubting herself, and especially not worrying about what her coach thinks about her game during the match. That adds so much pressure on the already very tensed Safina and greatly contributes to her meltdowns on court.
In my opinion, Krajan just isn’t doing a good job about coaching the mental side of tennis for Safina.
August 6th, 2009 at 1:17 am
And what’s interesting here is that when Safina first started to work with Krajan, she was very satisfied. She said that Krajan was the first coach who didn’t immediately started to correct her strokes but rather gave her positive feedback on her game.
When I saw that match, I saw that Krajan is under pressure too. His ego is on the line too; if Safina loses, he may not be doing a god job. At least that’s his thinking and thus he becomes tense too and “forgets” how to talk positively – instead he creates even more pressure – but in my opinion unknowingly (subconsciously).
August 16th, 2009 at 2:04 pm
Waiting for Dinara’s new titles! Go to grand slam
November 30th, 2009 at 9:15 am
Ok i’m a little late to the party but this whole thing about the way Zeljko talks to Dinara is stupid ! That’s how they work that’s it , you might think it’s harsh but she can handle it hell if he’s still around it’s because she likes it that way ! And really Krajan don’t have forever to talk to her , excuse him if he’s rude but with the way she was playing he was going nuts , i was going nuts in front of my scream so for a coach with a temper like Krajan it doesn’t shock me , he’s not politically correct that’s probably why everybody love to blame him
Oh and if Dinara thinks that what he said meant she was stupid well she’s stupid then :p