Safina rules herself out of Fed Cup final
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Russian Dinara Safina ruled herself out of next week's Fed Cup final against Spain on Monday because of exhaustion.
"No, I'm not playing Fed Cup," Safina told reporters after reaching the U.S. Open quarter-finals with a 7-5 6-0 win over German qualifier Anna-Lena Groenefeld.
"I flew from the States to China, from China back to the States. So I better take care of myself and prepare for the rest of the season."
The Russian world number seven, who has endured a gruelling schedule since May and reached six finals in her last seven tournaments, had to be persuaded by her coach to take the court on Monday because she was so tired.
"I didn't expect to win because I was just so exhausted," she said. "I finished the warm-up and I just said 'I cannot push myself anymore, I could not stop from crying'."
Safina said it made no sense to switch to clay for the September 13-14 tie in Madrid for one week in the middle of her regular hardcourt season.
Russian captain Shamil Tarpishchev is already resigned to field a second-string team next week since Olympic champion Elena Dementieva is unlikely to commit herself to the tie either.
"The Fed Cup final ends on September 14 and the following day a big tournament starts in Tokyo with a lot of ranking points at stake," Tarpishchev told reporters in Moscow on Monday.
"Dementieva and Safina have a real chance to become world number one so we might have to give both of them a break from the final."
The Russians will also be without three other top-10 players; Maria Sharapova, Vera Zvonareva and Anna Chakvetadze.
"Sharapova has a shoulder injury, Zvonareva has pain in her wrist and Chakvetadze is not fully fit at the moment," said Tarpishchev.
On Monday he named only two players, world number four Svetlana Kuznetsova and doubles specialist Elena Vesnina, in his Fed Cup squad.
Russia are bidding to win their fourth Fed Cup title in the last five years.
(Reporting by Gennady Fyodorov and Pritha Sarkar; Editing by John Mehaffey)
