Safina loses in 1st round at French Open

Paris: Kimiko Date Krumm became the second oldest woman to win a match at Roland Garros in the Open era on Tuesday, the 39-year-old Japanese player beating former No. 1 Dinara Safina 3-6, 6-4, 7-5 in the opening round.

Date Krumm, who came out of a 12-year retirement in 2008, is about a year older than when Billie Jean King won in 1982. Virginia Wade was about 2½ months older than Date Krumm when she won a match at Roland Garros in 1985.

"I'm really happy. I tried my best," Date Krumm said after the French crowd gave her a standing ovation. "I don't like so much the red clay, but today I beat Safina, so it will be great memories again."

Date Krumm is playing in the main draw of the clay-court Grand Slam tournament for the first time since 1996. She made her Grand Slam debut here in 1989, when Safina was only 3 years old.

Playing with her right calf strapped, Date Krumm committed 63 unforced errors but compensated with 38 winners. She said she was on the verge of retiring.

"I don't like to retire. Losing is a much better feeling," Date Krumm said. "But my feeling was I shouldn't stop and then she started to get a bit nervous, and then to make easy mistakes."

Date Krumm said she didn't pick up a racket during the first two years of her retirement. She then started to work on her fitness and ran the London Marathon in 2004. She also worked for Japanese TV as a pundit during the Grand Slam events and built a school in Laos with her husband, German race car driver Michael Krumm.

Date Krumm, whose best result at the French Open was a semifinal in 1995, said it was her husband who convinced her to return to competitive tennis.

"He kept asking me: 'Why don't you play tennis one more time? This is just for fun, not serious.' And he wanted to see me play, because when I met him I was already retired," she said. "So he pushed me, then I had an exhibition match with Steffi Graf and Martina Navratilova in Japan."

Date Krumm, who became the first Japanese player to enter the top 10 in 1994, returned on the tour in May 2008. Her win against Safina was her first over a top-10 player in 14 years.

"When I came back, I never thought about playing a Grand Slam again," Date Krumm said. "So today I was very, very happy to play on the Suzanne Lenglen court. I have great memories here."

In 1995, the year she reached the semifinals at Roland Garros, Date Krumm beat Lindsay Davenport and Iva Majoli before losing to Arantxa Sanchez Vicario.

Date Krumm will need to undergo scans before she knows if she can play in the next round.

"I'm not a 20-year old player anymore," she said. "But hopefully I will go on."

Safina was runner-up at Roland Garros in 2008 and 2009. Safina has been hampered by a back injury this season and her preparation for the French Open had been far from perfect, losing opening matches in Rome and Madrid.

She served 17 double faults against Date Krumm and later blamed her back problems.

"I couldn't work on my serve until I came here, basically," Safina said. "And the other part is that, I first thought I was doing pretty good but then I lost the motion and I started to serve more double faults."

Date Krumm called a trainer three times to receive treatment on her calf before inflicting Safina's first loss in the first round of a Grand Slam tournament since the 2008 Australian Open.

"First set, I was pretty dominant. Second set, I was up a break. Third set, I was up 4-1 with a double break," Safina said. "I should have closed it in two sets."