Let me whisper something in your ear...

Dinara Safina sat on a changeover, nearly dejected from a beating she had been suffering at the hands of seven-time grand slam champion Venus Williams, and looked into her towel for some sort of sign.

It didn't come until her coach, Zeljko Krajan, sat beside her that Thursday at the Internazionali BNL d'Italia.

Something he said must have been what she needed to hear to calm her, thus allowing the tide to change in a game where Venus Williams had been up a set and a break. Safina won the match in the third set, then went on to defeat Svetlana Kuznetsova in the final for her first title of the season.

It was a title she didn't win alone -- and in a single-person sport, no less.

The WTA presently allow for on-court coaching, which means that my gripe isn't one about an illegal action. To me, it still exists.

How would a commentator respond if, say, Richard Williams sidled up to Venus in the middle of a match? I can see the '97 U.S. Open final played over in this day and age now:

RW: Venus Ebonee Starr Got D*&$ Williams, you better not let that Swiss Miss get under your skin! Now look, put some tin foil on the end of that string of beads where the one fell off, and get back out there.

VW: Dad, I'm just not on the same level. I'm fighting as hard as I...

RW: Did you hear that? I think someone just called you a porch monkey. Is that how you want to be remembered? In your country? Now start rushing the net and bring that check home to daddy.

After a 20 minute changeover (we know that man can ramble), Venus would've come out smoking hot, taking the second set from Hingis, then winning the third in a tiebreak as Martina began to crumble.

But that's not how it worked.

For years, tennis has been one of those sports where you didn't look for any interference from outsiders. You only knew the coach had the hitting partner ready for after the match, or before the next match, or something to make sure a new strategy was taken into the next round.

It used to be if you faltered, you faltered. Now if you falter, you can rest on someone else's shoulders and pick yourself back up.

Safina may still be No. 1, but she wouldn't be No. 1 with an asterisk -- and two questionable titles in '09.