Dinara Safina, the younger sister of Marat Safin, reached World No. 1, joining her brother at the top of the tennis world. However, her career was cut short due to a back injury.
Several siblings have found success in tennis, with well-known examples including the Williams sisters, the Maleeva sisters from Bulgaria, and the McEnroe brothers, John and Patrick. However, Marat Safin and Dinara Safina remain the only brother and sister to both reach World No. 1 in the ATP and WTA rankings. Beyond that remarkable achievement, Dinara Safina’s career was also marked by struggles, including a back injury that ultimately forced her to retire at just 25 years old.
While she was often recognized as the younger sister of Safin, a two-time Grand Slam champion who also had his own struggles, Safina was able to become successful in her own right. However, it wasn’t easy to grow up in a tennis family, as her father was director of a tennis club and her mother was her coach.
“Being the little sister in such a big tennis family is not an easy situation. Maybe that’s why it took me longer to develop,” she told Tennis Confidential in 2008. “I wanted to be something by myself, like being a big player by myself. So at the beginning I was putting too much pressure on myself. But then gradually I found myself, and I learned how to do better with that situation.”
Her most successful years on tour came between 2007 and 2010. During that time, she reached three Grand Slam finals — the 2008 French Open, the 2009 Australian Open, and the 2009 French Open. In doubles, she claimed the 2007 US Open title alongside Nathalie Dechy and captured a silver medal in singles at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.