Skip to main content

Safina withdraws from WTA championship

Thursday, October 29, 2009 DOHA: Dinara Safina's dream of becoming the first Russian to end the year as world number one was left in tatters on Wednesday when her aching body finally gave out at the WTA Championships.The 23-year-old, who arrived in Doha ahead of 11-times grand slam champion Serena Williams in the rankings, managed just two games in her opening round-robin match against Serbia's Jelena Jankovic before a lower back injury flared up and she was forced to quit in tears.Shortly afterwards she confirmed she would be unable to take any further part in the tournament, meaning Williams, courtesy of her group victory over Svetlana Kuznetsova on Tuesday, was guaranteed ending the year as the No.1 -- the first time she has done that since 2002.Safina, who has been criticised for her failure to land a grand slam title, said she first injured her back in Slovenia in July but has battled on in pain to protect top spot, a position she held for 25 consecutive weeks this year."It's my low back, I have inflammation there in the bone," Safina, sister of former men's number one Marat, told reporters."I've been playing on in pain, on anti-inflammatories, on everything. It's been about three months."But as I was chasing this number one I was fighting with my body. God knows, maybe I should have stopped after the U.S. Open."I was still hoping, but then my body just gave up. And here, I did everything possible to play. I went yesterday to put injections, cortisone, but I could not handle this pain."
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

India's swine flu death rate is increasing

Friday, August 14, 2009 MUMBAI: A 26-year-old woman died Thursday of H1N1 swine flu in the southern city of Bangalore, raising India's death toll from the virus to 20, authorities said.The death was the first reported in India's information technology capital, the Press Trust of India reported.Meanwhile in Pune, the worst-affected in India, two more victims of the virus died Thursday, raising the death toll in that western city near Mumbai to 12, the report said. The victims were an 11-month-old boy and a 75-year-old old woman.US media reported movie halls, schools and colleges were ordered closed Thursday for three days to a week in Mumbai, the commercial and financial capital of the country, as fear of the pandemic spread.Prajakata Lavangare, a spokeswoman for the government of Maharashtra state of which Mumbai is the capital, said similar orders were issued in Pune, which is also located in the state.The woman who died in Bangalore was identified only as Roopa, a teacher in...
Post a Comment
Read more

Snake bite deaths

Monday, July 06, 2009 COLOMBO: The Sri Lankan government recorded some 33,000 snake bites in 2008, with most of the victims coming from remote villages.The Department of Government Information said in a statement that most of the snake bite cases could be fatal if neglected.The statement said snake bites are often neglected in Sri Lanka as victims do not seek treatment at hospitals where advanced medication is available. Instead, the victims rush to traditional type of treatment which could be a risk, reports Xinhua.Snake bites death at domestic level, outside hospitals, go unrecorded, said the statement.Most victims of snake bite are from the rural and remote villages where there is no electricity after dusk.Statistics show that Sri Lanka has over 90 species of snake with around 10 species possessing venom capable of killing a human being.In Sri Lanka the annual death rate due to snake bite envenoming is one of the highest in the world being 6 in 100,000 population.
Post a Comment
Read more

Suicide bombings kill 18 in Iraq

Thursday, August 13, 2009 MOSUL: At least 18 people, most of them members of the ancient Yazidi religious sect, were killed when two suicide bombers blew themselves up on Thursday in a packed cafe in northern Iraq, a local government official said.At least 31 people were also wounded after the bombers detonated suicide belts packed with explosives in the cafe in Kalaa town, in the district of Sanjar, local district chief Dakheel Qassem Hasoon, told a foreign news agency."Two suicide bombers entered the Cafe Barbaroz at 4:30 pm (1330 GMT) and blew themselves up, killing 18 civilians and wounding 31. Most of the victims were Yazidis," Hasoon said.Kalaa, northwest of the insurgent stronghold of Mosul in northern Nineveh province is predominantly populated by the minority Yazidi religious sect, as well as Arabs and Kurds.The attack is the deadliest since Monday, when 51 people were killed across Iraq, including 28 members of the tiny Shabak sect cut down when two truck bombs det...
Post a Comment
Read more