Safina unsure if she will ever play again

 

Originally published on: 07/10/11 10:02

Days after big brother Marat Safin said she has no chance of making a comeback as a result of persistent back pain, Dinara Safina has told ESPN that she is unsure if she will ever return to the tour.

Besieged by back trouble in the last two years, the former world no.1 has not played since losing to Julia Goerges in Madrid in May and announced in August that she would not play again in 2011.

“To be honest, I’m not sure that I’m going to come back,” the 25-year-old said this week. “But I don’t want to say officially that I’m going to retire. Right now when I have this back pain, I don’t think [of tennis] at all. I’m sick of this pain… I’m not missing it at all. If you live with this pain for a year and a half, it’s not fun anymore.”

Brother Marat, also a former world No.1, suggested last week that Dinara would almost certainly call it quits.

“If you recall, Dinara first suffered the injury in Beijing two years ago,” the two-time Grand Slam champion told the Russian media. “She has tried several times to make a comeback but it only caused her more problems.

“Now she must think of herself, not if she could play again, but just to live a normal life. She must continue with her therapy, but would not be able to play again.

“She will make an official announcement, but being her brother, I think she has no chance at all of making a comeback,” he added.

Stopping short of making an official announcement for the time being, Safina, who reached French Open finals in 2008 and 2009, and the Australian Open final in 2009, echoed her brother’s earlier musings.

“Whenever I start to think I’m going to have this back pain again, it’s just frustrating. I just want to have a normal life. If one day I would like to come back, I will start to practice, but I don’t want to say when.

“I just want to live day by day.”

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