Svetlana Kuznetsova wins French Open, not that you’d know it

At an apex of awkwardness came a gesture of dignity on Saturday at Roland Garros.

A chronic top-10 player with a nifty wit, a gregarious personality, landslide popularity among her peers and a quirky habit of dusting off the baseline before each serve won the French Open, but she didn’t show it.

Svetlana Kuznetsova saw the last flimsy, ghastly second serve from No. 1-ranked Dinara Safina plop onto the net cord, carom harmlessly into the air and flutter wide even of the doubles lane, whereupon Kuznetsova acted as if she’d just won a first-rounder at Podunk. She neither leaped nor collapsed nor sobbed nor even smiled at the realization of her 6-4, 6-2 win.

She simply turned around, faced her camp in the stands behind the baseline, crossed herself and trotted to hug a fallen and crestfallen fellow Russian she has played since age 12. “I could not react,” Kuznetsova said.

Like most any hopeful, “I was imagining I’m going to go down on the floor if I win Roland Garros in my dreams,” but, “No, I cannot smile at her face after double fault. No, I respect her [too much] to do that.”

For Kuznetsova knew that while she’d just finished mining her own frustrating struggle through the last 18 Grand Slam tournaments to locate a second major title to burnish her 2004 U.S. Open, her opponent suffered a fresh and depressing nadir of finals-phobia.

Safina has reached three of the last five Grand Slam finals -- including the last two in Paris -- and has lost all without winning a set or managing a moment. “I think this, I have to still learn,” she said forlornly.

After a clobbering from Serena Williams in the Australian Open, Safina supposedly had completed her Grand Slam finals apprenticeship. She roared along from there, ascending to No. 1 by May, a computer decision that wrung a brief quibble from No. 2 Williams in part because Safina had not won a Grand Slam.

What kind of ruler would she be? Well, after titles in Rome and Madrid, she tore through the first four rounds here unforgiving as all Marie Antoinette. She lost five games out of 53. Even in a 1-6, 6-4, 6-2 quarterfinal scrape with No. 9 Victoria Azarenka, Safina impressed with her regal capacity to regroup.

Still, that match defused (if not derailed) her, she believes. “I was not playing as aggressive like I started,” she said. “Slowly I became a bit passive.”

By the time she got going with No. 7 Kuznetsova, grunts and shrieks did resonate through Court Philippe Chatrier in the third all-Russian Grand Slam final of the decade, but Safina’s game started leaking until her ground strokes sprayed and strayed. You almost had to hope Williams didn’t watch so she couldn’t rue anew the lost opportunity from her 3-1, third-set lead in the quarterfinals against Kuznetsova.

Instead of graduating to know-how, Safina wound up epitomizing the hodgepodge of the current women’s game.

“One day she’ll make it here,” Kuznetsova said, while adding, “She plays with too much pressure.”

When Safina weakly netted her first serve on her closing double fault -- her seventh -- “I thought, oh, my God, she’s nervous,” Kuznetsova said.

Excruciating seconds later, “I was like, oh, my God, double fault.” For a long moment there was no other emotion to fathom.

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chuck.culpepper@yahoo.com