World No.58 Maria Kirilenko, who took out Maria Sharapova in the first round of the Australian Open, reached her first Grand Slam quarterfinal through Dinara Safina’s misfortune of a recurrent back injury.

The second-seeded Safina retired down 5-4 in the opening set of the fourth-round match, with the same low back injury that forced her out of the Sony Ericsson Championships in Doha at the end of last season.

Safina’s injury is extremely painful: "I just cannot move anywhere. I mean, the physio asked me to lie on the table. I said, I cannot lie. I cannot make any movement. Whatever I try to move, it hurts terribly." And to make things worse, Safina thinks she may have even worsened the injury because she continued to play the match.

Kirilenko, on the other hand, has problems of her own. She turns 23 on Monday, but will have to postpone her birthday celebrations: "I don't want to get drunk before my next match. It's going to be difficult for me to play then."

Unseeded Kirilenko will play China's Zheng Jie, also unseeded, in the quarterfinals. Zheng holds a 4-1 head-to-head lead over the Russian. (photo via Australian Open)

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It’s high time we featured Dinara Safina in our retrospections of the WTA players' outfits. The Russian is not a fashionista like most women's tennis players, but during a large part of 2009 she was ranked No.1 and I think her adidas Competition outfits deserve to be included.

As you can see, Safina is wearing simple and sporty tennis clothes, without glitter and too many details. That sort of style suits the Russian perfectly and even though Safina's 2009 outfits brought nothing we hadn't seen before, they were very nice.

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It seemed insane when Dinara Safina entered the Brisbane International, because just shortly before entering the tournament the Russian had stated that because of her back injury she might skip the Australian Open, which is after the Brisbane event in the calendar.

So now it comes as no surprise that Safina pulled out of the January 3-10 event, due to the back injury which forced her out of the Sony Ericsson Championships at the end of the 2009 season. (source: AFP, photo: chascow)

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Nothing of this is confirmed, but here are some previews of what women's tennis players may be wearing at the start of the 2010 season. Apparently, the new season is just around the corner.

Ana Ivanovic will supposedly wear this orange adidas adilibria dress, which has a yellow version as well.

Jelena Jankovic may be looking like a lemon and strawberry ice-cream if this is really her new ANTA outfit.

Dinara Safina will stick with classic adidas look. Read more »

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This is a bit old news that I didn't have time to report earlier: Dinara Safina has entered the Brisbane International, a warm-up tournament for the Australian Open, despite the serious back injury which forced her to pull out of the Sony Ericsson Championships and threatened her participation in the first Grand Slam of the year.

"The Brisbane International will be the perfect tournament to get some tough match practice in the lead-up to the Australian Open. I am looking forward to the challenge and I cannot wait to get there," said Safina who handed Serena Williams the year-end No.1 ranking by withdrawing from the Sony Ericsson Championships.

Safina joins Justine Henin, Kim Clijsters and Ana Ivanovic in a very strong women's field at the Brisbane International. (source: ESPN, photo via Sony Ericsson WTA Tour)

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