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Serena Williams reclaimed her world number one spot as Dinara Safina pulled out from the Sony Ericsson Championship.
The tight race for the year-ending world number one ranking ended in sudden and dramatic fashion on Wednesday at the Sony Ericsson Championships when a tearful Dinara Safina was forced to quit her match with Jelena Jankovic after 12 minutes due to back pain.
With the Russian later withdrawing from the event, the top WTA year-end ranking shifted back to Serena Williams, a winner of 11 career Grand Slam titles.
Safina said, “My body just gave up. I did everything possible to play here. I had a cortisone injection yesterday but I could not handle this pain anymore."
Williams won the Australian Open and Wimbledon but competed in a scarce only 11 other events outside of the four majors and the year-ender this week.
Safina won three titles this season and played a consistent, if unspectacular, season. She held the top spot for several months, lost it to Williams earlier this month, but was back on top in the latest rankings issued on Monday.
Jankovic, who lost her opening round-robin White group match 24 hours earlier against Victoria Azarenka, took the victory over the injured Safina at 1-1 with just 15 points played. Jankovic said,"It's really unfortunate. Dinara said she had hurt her lower back. I wished her well for her recovery. We all have problems with our bodies at this time of the year."
