No. 1 and trying harder, Safina gets the break she needed but didn’t want

Time off comes at wrong time for Safina

NEW YORK — Dinara Safina is the first to admit that what she really needs is some time off.

She got it, though hardly at a good time — eliminated in the third round of the U.S. Open after an ugly week’s stay at Flushing Meadows.

It included:

—Three poorly played, three-set matches, including her loss to 72nd-ranked Petra Kvitova that ended in the wee hours of Sunday morning.

—A veritable slap in the face from tournament organizers, who moved that third-round match out of Arthur Ashe Stadium and over to Armstrong, while allowing James Blake and Tommy Robredo, ranked 21st and 14th, to stay on the show court.

—Yet another round of uncomfortable questions about her status as the world’s top-ranked player, a ranking she has earned over a year of consistent play but has failed to punctuate with a major title.

She will keep that No. 1 ranking despite an early exit that came after committing 125 unforced errors and 35 double-faults over nine sets.

“A little bit of everything,” she said when asked to explain her struggles. “Also just playing, playing, playing, playing. Let’s just say sometimes you need some time to work on something. I don’t even have time for myself to relax and to calm down and to say, OK, let’s practice.”

That can be, in a nutshell, the curse of being No. 1. To get there and stay there, you have to play deep into a lot of tournaments.

Safina looked tired, rusty and nervous all week. She said she felt some “tension” trying to break through at a major, and also some fatigue from her hectic schedule. She has played 67 matches this season and won three tournaments — at Madrid, Slovenia and Rome. That compares to 52 for No. 2 Serena Williams, who has won twice — at Wimbledon and the Australian Open.

“Somehow, I’m still not used to it, and I guess I need a little bit some time to realize how it is,” Safina said. “Next year, I think I’ll be more experienced and I’ll plan the schedule better.”

STEPHENS LOSS: Tournament organizers are trying to make a sad situation a little better for Sloane Stephens.

Stephens is the 16-year-old contender in the girls’ tournament whose father, former NFL running back John Stephens, was killed last week in a one-car accident in Louisiana.

It’s only over the past couple of years that Sloane has gotten to know her father, who was divorced from Sloane’s mother, Sybil Smith, when Sloane was young. John Stephens had been suffering from a degenerative bone disease before the accident.

After thinking about it for a while, Stephens decided to withdraw from the tournament to attend the funeral in Louisiana on Tuesday, but organizers stepped in and rescheduled her second-round match so she could attend, and still come back and play.

“I’m ready and emotionally prepared,” Stephens said. “He was sick. He wanted to get in contact. We had a good relationship. It was long-distance but he was my dad, I respected that and that was it.”

Stephens said she’s trying to compartmentalize — worry about tennis while she’s here, grieve the death of a father she was still getting to know when she heads to the funeral. She said Melanie Oudin’s coach, Brian de Villiers, imparted the message that compelled her to go to the funeral, even if her match couldn’t have been rescheduled.

“He said he missed his own father’s funeral and he’s regretted it for 15 years,” Stephens said. “He said it was something I definitely needed to do, and I’m going to do it.”

INJURY DAY: Juan Martin del Potro ran into a wall. Gilles Simon tweaked his knee. Jose Acasuso had “left knee pain.” And when Rafael Nadal flopped to the ground to receive treatment on his abs, his opponent, Nicolas Almagro, figured he’d call the trainer, too.

Injuries ran rampant at the U.S. Open on Sunday. None appeared to be too serious.

Simon and Acasuso each retired from their matches while trailing. Del Potro was fine — just a little flesh wound — while Nadal, who missed Wimbledon with bad knees, said he was getting sick and tired of talking about injuries, but that the strained abs that have been bothering him since last month won’t keep him out.

“I saw Rafa call, so I prefer to call at the same time,” Almagro said of the dueling injury timeouts in Ashe Stadium.

Trainers came out and worked on his back and 20,000 fans got to watch both tennis players laying on the ground, getting massages.

What a difference a rubdown makes?

“My tennis was the same, before the trainer, after the trainer,” Almagro said.

THE MELTDOWN — Vera Zvonareva skidded and fell, did the splits, then sat there on the ground, pounding on her leg with her palm. Later, she smacked herself upside the head. There also was an argument with the chair umpire about letting Zvonareva borrow a pair of scissors to cut the tape off her knees.

Oh, yeah, and then there were the six match points she blew at the end of the second set.

All in all, a frustrating night for the seventh-seeded woman at the U.S. Open, known as one of the more temperamental players on the tour.

“I didn’t lose my temper,” she insisted afterward.

Who was going to argue with her?

She lost her fourth-round match to 10th-seeded Flavia Pennetta of Italy 3-6, 7-6 (6), 6-0, a setback she said came because her legs were hurting and she couldn’t get the tape job she needed to make things right.

“I knew I didn’t have the physical ability for a third set,” Zvonareva said. “I knew that in the middle of the second set.”

But she played on and probably will find herself on the sports highlight shows in the morning.

Pennetta said she could see it coming as the lost match points piled up.

“She’s always like this,” she said. “I know her. She can cry on the court, and then next point she fight and she play good tennis.”

NET CORDS: The MRI came back clean for Germany’s Sabine Lisicki, who had to be taken off the court on a wheelchair after spraining her ankle on the last point of her second-round loss to Anastasia Rodionova. Her agent, Olivier Van Lindonk, said Lisicki should be back on tour in about three weeks. … The Williams sisters advanced to the quarterfinals of the doubles with a 6-4, 6-2 victory over Sorana Cirstea and Caroline Wozniacki. Top-seeded Bob and Mike Bryan also moved to the quarters in the men’s draw. Venus, who lost to Kim Clijsters in singles, finally admitted the knee she hurt in the first round hampered her. “I wasn’t able to play 100 percent but I gave my best and unfortunately, I’m still not in the singles,” she said. … Upsets in the juniors first round included losses by second-seeded Daniel Berta, and top-seeded girl Kristina Mladenovic. Both were winners at the French Open.