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Far from complacent, Serena Williams is on high alert as she eyes another small slice of tennis history in Saturday night’s Australian Open final against Russian dynamo Dinara Safina.
Williams is an overwhelming favourite to join an exclusive club of women to have accrued 10 or more grand slam trophies, but says it would be foolish to underestimate Safina merely because she lost her one and only previous major championship final.
Safina conceded she succumbed to nerves and wasn’t “mentally ready” in last year’s French Open final loss to Ana Ivanovic.
“I don’t know if that factors in too much,” Williams said on Friday, fresh from teaming with sister Venus to claim an eighth grand slam doubles crown with a 6-3 6-3 final win over Ai Sugiyama and Daniela Hantuchova.
“Once you make it to one grand slam final, you pretty much know what to expect.
“If anything, she’s going to be way more hungry for it and want it even more. That’s going to be definitely going for her.”
Oozing confidence after a watershed 2008 season, Safina agrees she is far better equipped second time around.
Plodding along barely inside the world’s top 20, Safina’s career turned in one stunning week last May when she beat the top-ranked Justine Henin, then Williams and Elena Dementieva en route to lifting the trophy in Berlin.
“That tournament in Berlin just turned me completely around,” Safina said. “I became a different player.”
Didn’t she what.
Success over Henin not only pushed the Belgian into premature retirement, but also sparked a spectacular run for Safina, who proceeded to collect four titles from seven finals appearances in less than five months.
“She’s developed a lot. She’s gotten a lot more confident. You can just see she’s more focused now, more intense, and you can just totally see the change,” Williams said.
“Her game has just developed. It’s improved leaps and bounds.”
Few finals, though, carry such high stakes as Saturday night’s at Melbourne Park, where the victor will also seize the world No.1 ranking from faltering Serb Jelena Jankovic.
Safina is also striving to complete two family doubles unprecedented in tennis.
Marat Safin walked off with the 2005 Open trophy, having already briefly climbed to the top of the men’s rankings following his 2000 US Open triumph.
No brother and sister have ever before won a grand slam and both reached world No.1.
“It’ll be a dream comes true,” Safina said.
“It is great that I can follow in his footsteps because he was my idol, and he is still my idol.”
But with a 1-5 losing record against Williams, Safina accepts she is the underdog – but not because of her two straight-set drubbings at the hands of the American late last year at the US Open and season-ending championships.
Safina insists those losses are irrelevant now, the 22-year-old citing mental and physical fatigue from a 54-match burst as the more likely reason for her demise.
“I was just not ready to play at all. I was dead completely. There was nothing inside of me anymore,” Safina said.
In addition to her vastly improved physical state, Safina also believes her rugged ride through the draw this fortnight has steeled her psychologically.
The third seed had to survive two match points in the fourth round and then contend with the parochial home support during her hard-fought quarter-final success over Australian wildcard Jelena Dokic.
“Yeah, it really helped me. To get to the grand slam final, you have to go through all these kind of things,” Safina said.
“That makes you stronger, to play the match like against Jelena when all the crowd is supporting her.
“But I stayed very tough mentally there. I didn’t panic. I didn’t do anything. Made me stronger now.”
No-one, though, is mentally stronger than Williams, the only woman in history to save match points twice en route to grand slam glory.
Nor is anyone richer than Williams, whose progression to the final elevated the 27-year-old above Swedish golfing superstar Annika Sorenstam to become the all-time prize money leader in women’s sport with $A34.73 million in career earnings.
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