Safina has been off the competitive circuit since the 2010 Australian Open. She had severely injured her back during the 2009 summer season, but had continued to play up through the Australian Open, when she was forced to retire in the fourth round while playing against her countrywoman, Maria Kirilenko.

On Friday, Safina publicly revealed the extent of her injury in a blog entry on her official website.

“My injury from Australia was pretty bad and takes so long to heal. The problem is that I had it since Cincinnati last year, and since then had been playing all the time while on pain killers. My back was really bad there but I didn’t feel anything the rest of the season until my last match at the Australian Open. After that match, I had an MRI and I had two stress fractures on L5S1 and a rupture on the muscle. That was the worst news I could ever hear from a doctor, but now finally I’m recovering, though not as fast as I would prefer.”

Though her recovery has been slow, Safina has now resumed practicing. She has not announced a time frame for her return. Currently she is in Croatia working with her physio, Tomislav Vrbnjak. “He is really one of the best I’ve ever had in my life and he is really taking the best care of me.”

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• Kim Clijsters Injured Herself Dancing at Nephews Wedding – April 11, 2011
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Serena Williams has annonced that she will be returning to the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour after spending over two months on the sidelines.

Williams has not competed since she won the Australian Open in January, 2010, her 12th Grand Slam title. She has accepted a wild card into the 2010 Internazionali BNL d’Italia in Rome, Italy, scheduled for May 2-9.

The Internazionali BNL d’ Italia is a Premier event on the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour and is one of tennis’ biggest events on clay before Roland Garros.

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• Serena Williams Defaulted from US Open Semi Final Against Kim Clijsters, Terrible! – September 14, 2009
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• Serena Williams Pulls Out of Brisbane with Ankle Injury: In Doubt for Australian Open 2012 – January 4, 2012
• US Open 2011 Injury List is Growing – August 22, 2011

Clijsters has been slowly warming herself up for the summer hard courts of America since announcing that she was coming out of retirement in late March of this year. She played a Wimbledon exhibition in May against Steffi Graf, then handily beat Michaella Krajicek, a former top 30 player, in another exhibition last month. This month, Clijsters will return to American soil on the World TeamTennis stage, playing for the St. Louis Aces. In the spring of 2007, Clijsters retired at 23 after winning one major, 34 tour titles and holding the top ranking for 19 weeks. She cited boredom, injuries and the desire to start a family as reasons for stepping away from the game.

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• WTA Tour Rankings: Serena Up to 31st, Kim Clijsters Down – August 15, 2011
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• Dinara Safina Will Not Return to WTA Tour Any Time Soon – April 26, 2010

The drill goes like this.

What you need – 2 players. One Serving and the other Receiving. 2 balls – one for the server and one for the receiver.

1. The Receiver starts the drill by bouncing a ball on their racquet, not letting it touch the ground.
2. The server serves another ball whenever he or she is ready. – Second Serve speed – about 80% serve.
3. The receiver must continue to keep bouncing the ball on their racquet, hit the ball the server served and continue bouncing the ball on their racquet.

It sounds difficult however you work it out after a few serves. What I worked out is – tap the ball gently only leaving the racquet about 1 foot. Just after the server makes contact with the ball tap the ball higher (not sure how high I was not watching the ball in the air – I was focussing on the return- maybe 3 meters)

This really trains you to work on your peripheral vision and after a while you are actually become quite relaxed and confident you can make the return and keep bouncing the ball on your racquet.

After you have finished that drill try hitting normal returns… How easy are they now !!!

By overloading your system you work on all your senses. An advanced version of this would be to have people throwing balls at you, random noise next to you, or obstacles you need to step around. When all these distractions are taken away and ‘all’ you have to do is hit a return it much easier !

What do you think? Leave a comment or let us know another drill you like and use

Michael

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