FRENCH OPEN 2008: Women's Final Preview

Dinara Safina RUS (13)	vs. Ana Ivanovic SRB (2).

The brand new World #1 from Serbia is in her second consecutive final of the year as well as her second consecutive Roland Garros final. She's favored to defeat "Marat's little sister" who has twice stared down match point (against Maria Sharapova in the 4th round and Elena Dementieva in the quarters) in this tournament but is miraculously through to her first major final. Could this be the year of the Russian exactly four years after the first all-Russian final of Myskina-Dementieva? Doubtful.

Ivanovic dug deep in her semi-final against compatriot Jelena Jankovic when she lost the second set despite being up 3-1. In the decisive third set she proceeded to fall behind 3-1, fought back to even the score at 4-4 through some extremely hard hitting and athletic defense and eventually denied the older Jankovic her first "bite at the apple" in a major final.

In her semifinal, Safina played her third consecutive countrywoman, Svetlana Kuznetsova, who surprisingly was even more nervous than Safina was and unfortunately was unable to play her best tennis, thus handing Safina her first major final. If Safina wins, Dinara and Marat would become the first brother-sister sibling pairs to win major titles. If Ivanovic wins, she will be the first woman from her country to win a major tennis title, and amazingly someone from Serbia will have won the first two titles of 2008.

PREDICTION: Ivanovic in 3 sets.