	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

AUSTRALIAN OPEN

January 24, 2010

Dinara Safina

MELBOURNE, VICTORIA

M. KIRILENKO/D. Safina
5-4 (ret.)

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. What is the problem? You look terrible.
DINARA SAFINA: My back again. It suddenly hit me. It was getting worse and worse. I have no idea really how it could happen. It's really, really terrible.

Q. There was no indication earlier?
DINARA SAFINA: The only thing I felt a little bit stiff in practice like during the serve, but nothing serious. My doctor told me I could sometimes have some discomfort in that spot, as I had bone edema, maybe I could not use full power. As long as I can play match, it can happen and I can have discomfort, but he said no pain, nothing.
Today I warm up. Yesterday I had treatment. Today I warm up, it was fine. I was cooling down, and I start to feel a little more pain. Suddenly I played a long game at 3-2. I won the game. I turned to my coach. I said, I cannot move anymore.

Q. Have you had a diagnosis insofar as how long you could be out of the game? Is it bad?
DINARA SAFINA: I have to go back to Germany to my doctor to speak with him. I mean, I did MRI before I came here, and my bone edema was getting much smaller. It could not happen this. I just really -- I just don't know what happened. It's shocking.

Q. Have you managed to speak to your doctor since you came off court?
DINARA SAFINA: No, not yet. I'm sure my coach is talking to him.

Q. How does this feel compared to last year when you had the back injury?
DINARA SAFINA: Exactly the same like in Doha. Exactly the same. I just cannot move anywhere.
I mean, the physio asked me to lie on the table. I said, I cannot lie. I cannot make any movement. Whatever I try to move, it hurts terribly.

Q. So it's gotten worse after you came off the court today?
DINARA SAFINA: Yes. Like because I took pain killer before the match, because I was feeling stiff. I think, Okay, I going to take it as a discomfort so I forget about the pain. Then at 3-2, I said, Okay, can you please give me some more painkillers? I kept on trying because I thought like, Okay, it's going to work, it has to.
My coach told me at 4-3 to retire. I'm like, Okay, I'm going to try. But it's no way.

Q. Do you think you may have done more damage by playing the extra two games?
DINARA SAFINA: Yeah, I'm think so. But, you know, you always hope that it cannot get worse. If it would be the same, you think, Okay, like pain killer, whatever, it can help. You always hope.
Now I see I did worse.

Q. Can you travel tomorrow with your back?
DINARA SAFINA: The plan for me is to see the doctor as soon as possible to see exactly what happened. I don't know how I will pack my bags. I guess I will ask my team to help me to pack my bags, because I really don't know how to move now.
Maybe I stay here one more day and I fly the other day. I don't know.

End of FastScripts

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297