Dinara Safina, Venus Williams, Svetlana Kuznetsova exit Tokyo in second round

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Wilson Blade 9

Dinara SafinaTop seed Dinara Safina, second seed Venus Williams and fifth seed Svetlana Kuznetsova all suffered upsets in the second round of the Toray Pan Pacific Open. The fact that so many of them got upset at the same time kind of makes their individual losses milder, and early losers Ana Ivanovic and Flavia Pennetta look better.

World No.1 and defending champion Dinara Safina fell to 18-year-old Taiwanese qualifier Chang Kai-Chen, ranked 132nd, 7-6(5) 4-6 7-5. Safina had an opportunity to close out the match in the third set, but double-faulted, dropped her serve, and went on to lose.

Venus Williams lost to Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 7-6(6) 7-5, while Svetlana Kuznetsova, who just like Safina and Williams had a bye in the first round, lost 7-5 4-6 6-3 to Germany’s Andrea Petkovic. (source: BBC, photo: Jean-Sebastien Marceau)

20 COMMENTS

  1. Maria wins, and change her serve back to the old usual motion. 😛

    I hope she changed it because her shoulder is fine now and not because the other new serve isn’t working really well. She served better today, and played better as the match progressed. Good luck in the next round.

  2. Teerin, I’m sorry I didn’t mention Maria’s victory in this post, but you see, there were some more shocking results. You see, Maria winning is a natural thing. 🙂

    Thanks for enriching my post. 🙂

  3. Oh, it’s alright. These upsets should be mentioned as always. It’s just typical for me to mention Maria in most of my comments, haha. 😛

    I’m trying to gather videos from matches, once the season ends (I’m waiting for YEC 🙂 ) we can do a countdown of the best oufits and honorable mentions in 2009. 🙂

    Anyway, Dinara’s loss is quite embarrassing. We know it’s predictable but since she’s No. 1, it’s not looking so good. Thank God, Maria stopped the streak of upsets. Hope she can win tomorrow against Sam. 😀

  4. Even though Sharapova served better today I’m worried about her switching back to the old motion because that’s what all caused her all the shoulder trouble in the past isn’t it? If she plays really well she has a good chance of winning the tournament. I just hope I’m not speaking too soon 😉

  5. I guess Dinara is still under the US Open strain, she needs to put her mental state together or else she sets herself up for a disaster. Venus has not recovered properly, I guess, she also should take better care of herself. No offence, but 29 is 29…

  6. Teerin, I believe in you. You can let loose your imagination and make a video you like, and I will feature it on my blog.

    Marine, “29 is 29” oops. 😛 But look at Kimiko Date Krumm, she’s 39!

  7. Maria had two match points to double bagel Samantha!!! 😀

    I’m so glad she switched her to her old motion. 1 double fault only, and 7 aces! 20 winners and only 7 unforced errors! Woooooo! I hope she can keep up her good play. Too bad she only played well now — but 2010 looks very promising!

    Anyway, Marija, I will “let loose my imagination”. Maybe we can come up with ideas of what videos to do in the near future. Right now, I took your idea from what you told me in my e-mail about the best outfits in 2009. I was going to do the Asia season (right now) outfits but I notice players are wearing the same outfits at the USO and the YEC/end of 2009 is near, so. 😛

  8. I’m looking forward to retrospections 😀
    And with videos, good music 🙂
    Like, Amy winehouse and The Gossip and Patrick Wolf and the Pussycat Dolls! hahaha 😀

  9. Teerin, you can wait a bit and make the retrospection of the 2009 outfits. In the meantime, you can play with some other videos, you can choose your topic. What do you think?

  10. Please help me choose a topic, what do you suggests? 😛

    I’ll go gaze at the stars maybe something’s gonna pop up like when I’m trying to write a poem.

    Anyway, Maria won against Alisa in three sets. Maria showed up in the last two sets (she should have bagelled Alisa in the second set when she led 5-0 but Alisa took a medical timeout and bathroom break, Maria fell for her evil plans 🙂 ). Congratulations Maria, Iveta Benesova up next.

  11. Teerin, if you don’t have inspiration you don’t have to make a video. It’s as simple as that.

    I have a suggestion, but it’s not that easy to make. I would like to see a short compilation of the funniest/most memorable/most shocking on-court moments in women’s tennis in 2009. Those are just some examples…

  12. That’s a nice idea. And we’ve got plenty of memorable moments of 2009 — I think I can do that, actually I think I’m going to enjoy doing that. 🙂

    I’m going to start soon. Probably will finish after Beijing. Thank you, Marija. 😛

    And ZOMG Maria makes it through again. Win the title babe!

  13. I’m glad you like my idea Teerin. I have one suggestion – closely choose just the best of the best moments, in order for the video not to be too long. I suggest up to 5 minutes. You can do whatever you think is the best, but that’s my advice.

  14. Oh okay, thank you for the suggestion. Maybe we can do a countdown, that way there won’t be that much clips and it won’t take too long. But I’ll just see how it comes out while doing it. 🙂

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