Krasnoroutskaya excels
ByReuters
Published 18/02/2003 at 07:40 GMT
Lina Krasnoroutskaya beat Adriana Serra Zanetti 6-3 6-0 at the Dubai Open on Monday, taking another step towards re-establishing a career that had appeared wrecked by an ankle injury. The Russian, who reached the Doha semi-finals last week, took just 61 minutes to breeze past her Italian opponent.
Eurosport
Image credit: Eurosport
Lina Krasnoroutskaya beat Adriana
Serra Zanetti 6-3 6-0 at the Dubai Open on Monday, taking
another step towards re-establishing a career that had appeared
wrecked by an ankle injury.
The Russian, who reached the Doha semi-finals last week,
took just 61 minutes to breeze past her Italian opponent.
RESULTS: Dubai action!
Krasnoroutskaya, who was junior U.S. Open and world champion
in 1999, reached the quarter-finals of the 2001 French Open at
the age of 17.
But last year, when playing Conchita Martinez in the first
round of the Australian Open, she sprained her left ankle so
badly that she was sidelined for months and thought she might
never play again.
"When the people are telling you that the injury is so bad
they tell you that the worst time is when you're starting to
practise again and you see you've lost everything.
"But for me the worst time was right after the hospital,
because no one really knew what it was," Krasnoroutskaya, now
ranked 72nd in the world, said.
"I thought I wasn't going to play again after that...but I
have very good friends who talked to me and spent almost 24
hours a day with me telling me that...everything was going to
come back. It was very hard for me to understand because
everything was hurting me so much," she said.
"Now I finally have the feeling I can get back higher than
the ranking I had before, which was 34. It was really, really
hard, and I would never wish what happened to me to happen to
anybody else," she added.
Since making a tentative comeback in August, and despite
suffering a sprained left knee in Bali a few weeks later,
Krasnoroutskaya has continued to climb the rankings.
In the other matches on the opening day, Francesca Schiavone
of Italy defeated Russia's Tatiana Panova 6-4 6-0, and
17-year-old Russian Svetlana Kuznetsova saved a set point on her
way to beating Iva Majoli of Croatia 7-6 (7-2) 6-2.
World number two Venus Williams withdrew from the tournament
last Friday, announcing that she was rearranging her schedule.
But the $585,000 event still boasts a field that includes world
number four Justine Henin-Hardenne, sixth-ranked Jennifer
Capriati, number seven Amelie Mauresmo and 11th-ranked Monica
Seles.
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