Safina's exit perplexing yet weirdly predictable

TENNIS/FRENCH OPEN:OF ALL the stories that will unfold at this tournament, the perplexing yet weirdly predictable exit of Dinara Safina deserves to be near the top of page one. Few present on Court Suzanne Lenglen in the draining heat of the afternoon could believe that the enigmatic Russian, a former world number one, had lost in three troubled sets to Kimiko Date Krumm, who turns 40 in September.

Safina did little to enlighten them. “Basically,” she said, “I just got tight. Then I started to serve more double faults.”

You could say that: 17 of them. She also hit 38 unforced errors (to her opponent’s 63), never came to the net and was broken six times. But the bare statistics – a 3-6, 6-4, 7-5 scoreline – hardly tell the tale.

Date Krumm finished the two hours and 24 minutes match limping badly through the final set with cramp and the recurrence of an old injury. It was so bad she could not sit down between breaks – and could not stop smiling at the end.

She went on the tour full-time 20 years ago and was a top-10 player in a weakened era.

The German racing driver Michael Krumm, whom she married nine years ago, cajoled her into coming back, “to see me play”, as she put it, so she picked up a racket again in 2008 after a break of 12 years.

Her abiding memory of Roland Garros is playing Arantxa Sanchez Vicario in the 1995 semi-finals but she admitted: “I don’t like so much the red clay. If I lose, still I am very happy to be here.”

She is a charming but unthreatening addition to a circuit populated by an increasingly mature battalion of experienced players. But 39 is pushing it.

Date Krumm is actually left-handed but plays right because that is the custom in Japan, where she took up the game at six.

Recently, the second stage of her career has been plagued by injury.

In February, she withdrew in the first round in Pattaya City with an ankle injury, which struck again in Kuala Lumpur; in May she retired from her second-round match at Estoril with a calf strain, then pulled out of a Warsaw tournament with the same injury.

That injury was compounded by cramp in stifling conditions yesterday, a few hours before a fierce thunderstorm struck.

Meanwhile, an emotional Justine Henin described her win over Tsvetana Pironkova as “a beautiful” experience after coming through a tricky first-round match.

Playing at Roland Garros for the first time since completing a hat-trick of singles title wins in 2007, the four-times champion struggled on her serve throughout but did just enough to seal a 6-4, 6-3 victory.

Henin was technically on a 21-match winning streak at Roland Garros, having not lost there since 2004.

The Belgian 22nd seed had also won her last 35 sets in the tournament, a statistic she had more than a little difficulty extending to 37. “I did not have the opportunity to practice on centre court before this morning, so I came in at 9.45am,” said the 27-year-old.

“Even if I know this court — I’ve lived beautiful things here — but I walked on this court and it was unknown to me.

“Then, when I started playing, many things came back to my memory, and I had this beautiful feeling of happiness, of being here again. I thought I would never experience that again in my life.”