FRENCH OPEN 2009: Women's Final

FRENCH OPEN 2009: Women's Final

Svetlana Kuznetsova had waited nearly five years to win her second major tennis championship. She had slogged through three-set matches fraught with anxiety during this 2009 French Open tournament.

But on Saturday morning in Paris, Kuznetsova made short work of the women’s final against her fellow Russian opponent, Dinara Safina. She needed only 74 minutes to breeze through what was to be the hardest match yet, upending the top-seeded Safina with a 6-4, 6-2 victory.

“I have been waiting for this moment for a long time, losing to the winners,” Kuznetsova, a 23-year-old from St. Petersburg, said in her bubbly English on Philippe Chatrier court when accepting the trophy. “I had been playing many matches, and this time it happened. Really, I didn’t expect it to happen this year,”

At age 19, Kuznetsova had captured the 2004 U.S. Open championship, also over another fellow Russian player, Elena Dementieva. But she had twice finished as a runner-up in major tournaments, and had been known for squandering big leads.

This match had none of Kuznetsova’s trademark drama where she would seem to be in control only to fall behind, and then overcome her opponent again — as she did in the three-set marathon quarterfinal match against Serena Williams earlier this week.

Kuznetsova lost her serve on the first game of this match, but from there never lost her composure or control.

Instead, it was Safina, the younger sister of two-time major champion — and infamous emotional player — Marat Safin, who slammed her racquet to the clay court after she double-faulted — her seventh — to give the match to Kuznetsova.

Safina, 23, had shown little of the dominance she had exhibited in the spring season, when she had won 20 of her last 21 matches. That one previous defeat was also to Kuznetsova.

With an arsenal of tricky drop shots to go with her powerful groundstrokes that routinely wrong-footed Safina, Kuznetsova moved around the court with ease. Her leg strength might just be hereditary, since her mother is a six-time world champion cyclist and her father a five-time Olympic coach. Her brother, Nikolai, won a silver medal in the 1996 Olympics in cycling.

Kuznetsova seemed bouyed by meeting her idol, Steffi Graf, in the locker room before the match for the first time. Graf, a six-time French Open champion, was on hand to present Kuznetstova the trophy a little more than an hour later, and the two hugged on court.

After thanking the crowd and her family, Kuznetsova praised her fellow countrywoman, Safina, and said that one day she would get that first major championship. “I guess today I played a little better,” she said. “I am sorry for that.”