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News & Articles Part 3 - The Return of the Yeti

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#1 · (Edited by Moderator)
#3,078 ·
Marat on Agassi's confession:

Safin said the eight-time Grand Slam champion should have spoken up at the time of the positive test or kept his mouth shut.

"One should know how to be silent, but if you are so smart you should have spoken up earlier," Safin said of Agassi after reaching the quarterfinals at the St. Petersburg Open.

"You will never live to see such revelations from me.

"How they will escape this situation -- this is the ATP's and Agassi's problem," Safin added.
 
#3,085 ·
I don't know if you all have seen the Tennis magazine article but I have it and will copy the text.. It's called the "Magical Misery Tour" :lol: I scanned it into my computer but can't figure out how to get it in here with the pictures. If anyone would like me to email the file I can do it though. Anyway, here is what it says..

If the measure of a man is taken from the tales told about him, Marat Safin is the size of a mountain. Nine years ago, a 20-year-old Safin didn’t so much announce his arrival in the game as destroy all our preconceived notions about it. Here was a big man who moved like a small one, a clean-swinging killer who pummeled Pete Sampras in the 2000 U.S. Open final and left no doubt that the era of serve and volley tennis was over. “He can be No.1 for many, many years,” Sampras said. But Safin wanted something else, and in the 13 seasons he spent looking for it, he revealed as much of himself—his charm, his fury, his humor, his heart, his misery—as any player who came before him. In honor of Safin’s retirement, effective in November, here are a few of his stories, told by Safin and the people who loved him, indulged him, loathed him, and no matter what, found him impossible to resist.

ROADTRIP
Marat safin is banged up, playing badly, and less than a month away from trying to defend his 2000 U.S. Open title, which he won by playing the perfect Final. “That match was like a 59 round in golf,” Mats Wilander says. “It’s not going to happen more than once in a lifetime.” Safin refuses to believe this. Wilander, Safin’s coach at the time, decides that he needs break, so after an early exit from Montral the two set out from Sun Valley, Idaho where Wilander has a home, for Boise, where Eric Clapton is playing a show. They spend three days driving in Wilanders winnebago, padding what would have been a three hour trip with visits to hot Springs. Safin is relaxed, happy, far away from tennis. Then it’s time for the show. A few songs into it, Safin has heard enough. Acoustic Clapton - boring stuff. Him being the player and I being the coach, we left, Wilander says. “1 really wanted to watch that whole concert. We had great seats.” Wilander a guitarist and Clapton worshipper, isn’t pleased by safin’s gloominess at the time, though he tells the story affectionately; ‘That’s Marat,”

DROP IT
It’s late evening in Paris, at the 2004 Fr Open. Safin hits a drop shot winner in the fifth set and drops his shorts to celebrate. He’s penalized a point. “They tried to destroy the match,” he says later. “All the people who n the sport, they have in clue.”

PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE
Safin stands on the practice courts of Barcelona in 2005. He isn’t happy. Crack.. One racquet down. Smash. There goes another. And another. Peter Lundgren, Safin’s coach, begins to worry: Safin has a match to play in two days, and he has two racquets left in his bag. crack! Make that one. Smash! ‘I called his manager and said, ‘we have a problem, Marat broke all his racquets,” Lundgren says. The next day Lundgren drives to the airport and collects a bag of racquets from one of the managers friends, who had received a few Safin racquets as a gift and now has to give them back. The friend immediately hops on a return f1ight “I was pretty pissed off when he did it, but now afterwards it’s pretty Funny;” Lundgren says. He gets angry and, he can’t help himself, he’s just S000000 angry. But he’s honest. You can almost feel for him when he’s that angry. You understand it.” Safin loses in the first round.
 
#3,086 ·
More..

ONE MORE YEAR
The first stop on the 2OO9 Marat Safin Farewell Tour is the Hopman Cup, in Perth, where he’s teamed up with his sister, Dinara Safina. It begins with a surprise. Safin shows up with two black eyes, obtained in a fight in Moscow. Safin doesn’t explain; he says only that he won. Not even Lundgren, a close friend, knows the whole story, “If he doesn’t want to talk about it, I don’t ask for details,’ he says. “1 wouldn’t like to fight him, I tell you that.’ In the Hopman cup final, Safin prepares to return serve against Dominik Hrbaty. The serve lands wide but Safin reflexively stretches for a two-handed backhand and gives the ball a ride. It hits the net judge. Safin jogs to the net, apologizes, and gives her a pat on the shoulder and a kiss on tile cheek.

LOST AND FOUND
Many times he forgot racquets when he came to the tournaments and shoes,” says Ivan Ljubicic, who met Safin as a kid during international team competitions and often practiced with him in Monte Carlo, where they both live. It happens again this year as Safin travels to his final Wimbledon. He arrives at the airport, gear in tow. The season isn’t going as planned. He has a losing record, he’s bored with interviews, tired of talking about his retirement. “ a little bit different, different from what I thought—it’s difficult to explain Safin says. ‘The feeling that I thought I would get from coming back for the last time to the tournaments, I don’t get this particular feeling that I was hoping to get. When his plane lands in London, he’s missing something. “I forgot them in the airport,” he says, smiling. ‘it happens.’ The equipment arrives the next day. Satin loses in the first round.

THE ALPINIST
To climb Cho Oyu in the Himalayas, aka “The Turquoise Goddess,” the sixth-tallest mountain in the world, you must walk slowly. Safin doesn’t do slow. It’s the fall of 2007 and his tennis stinks so he flies to Nepal. Dmitry Tursunov, who has met Safin’s climbing buddies, shares a few laughs about the trip. Marat sprinted out of the gates up the hill and he was just dead, his head was ringing, there’s no oxygen,” Tursunov says. “He thought it was a fifth set so he was hauling ass with the backpack, Yeah, I’m going to conquer mountain!’ And these guys are walking really slow, saying, ‘Look at this jackass.” The hike was supposed to last 30 days; Safin comes down after 10. “We were just imagining what was going on,’ Tursunov says of Safin’s fellow players. “Somebody had to go there with him because there’s no way he would go a month without sex.” Safin doesn’t understand the fuss over his adventure. It’s a little bit funny that people paid so much attention to that,” he says. “I’m not going into space. I bought the ticket, I went to Himalaya, had fun with friends, that’s it. ‘Never thought it would make such a big noise—all the people, Wow, you went to Himalaya?’ Yeah, well, buy the ticket. the ticket costs 600 bucks, you get your ass on the plane, and you go there?’
I don think he enjoys the spotlight as much as other people", Tursunov says.
 
#3,087 · (Edited)
Last..

A CLOSER LOOK
It’s summer in Cincinnati, three or four years ago. The exact date and round are fuzzy, but a veteran umpire, who asks not to be identified, remembers the details. Safin is on court and Carlos Bernardes, is in the chair. Safin objects to a call; he believes the ball is out. He finds the mark. He traces the distance between the mark and the line with his middle finger, and then turns his hand up and shows Bernardes said finger. “The ball was this far out, Safin says playfully “If you show the middle finger to the chair, it’s usually a call to the supervisor and maybe a default,” the veteran umpire says. “ he made it funny,’ He gets off with a warning. Is Safin a nightmare for at umpire? “He’s very demanding, but he’s a fair guy,” the umpire says. ‘He would never circle the wrong mark, never cheat. It’s difficult to find guys who are that honest’

TAKE A LEFT
Welcome to Melbourne, site of so many Safin memories. The tournament drivers know Marat well. One time, he asks a driver for help. ‘Excuse me, could you turn here?” the driver recalls Safin saying. Safin had noticed a woman on the street near the car, a woman he once knew and didn’t want to know again. The driver takes the long way back to the hotel.

REDEMPTION
“Everyone thinks he’s really lazy,’ Ljubicic says, ‘but I tell you, when he wanted to do something, it got done.’ He recalls Safin in the fall of 2004. “Running, medicine balls, weights— he was in the club all day”
“It was important or my ego,” Safin says firmly. He had to win a second major just to prove to himself that he could. Is Marat Safin an underachiever? Wilander says that’s nonsense: ‘When you that emotional on court, you don’t underachieve’ Safin admits that the 2000 U.S. Open title became an obstacle. ‘1 was like, ‘Game over. I achieved everything I wanted, what’s next?” he says. ‘There wasn’t a real person who could guide me. I was guessing; I was a little bit stubborn.”
Now, in January 2005, here’s another chance, an Australian open semifinal meeting with Roger Federer, the defending champion and the man who became everything Marat Safin might have been. Lundgren coached them both and describes the difference between them. “Marat likes other things too much,” he says. He likes tennis, but he doesn’t burn for it like Roger does.” on this night, though, Safin does. It’s the fourth-set tiebreaker, match point for Federer. Federer stretches for a volley and drops it short. Safin moves inside the service line. He lunges before the ball bounces a second time and flicks a lob over Federer’s head, Federer retreats and tries a trick shot, a between-the-legs winner. The ball lands in the net. It takes 16 more games, but Federer falls, literally; on match point, after an awkward stretch for a bullet Safin backhand, 5-7, 5-4, 5-7, 7-6 9-7. Safin doesn’t celebrate. He just limps to the net, his shoulders slumped. I still think that’s the greatest tennis match that I ever watched,” Wilander says. What few men have done once, Safin did twice. Two 59s on the golf course. He’ll be missed.
 
#3,092 ·
QUOTE: ... because there’s no way he would go a month without sex.”

LMAO. He's up a mountain, and single. This REALLY appeals to my sense of humour. Hang in there, Big Yin. Just wait until you've officially retired ... or are in a long-term relationship, working all hours, have a wean (ha ha ha), have no control over your day... LMAO. You've got a steep learning curve to come.

FG
 
#3,096 · (Edited)
Another entry from Steve Tignor

Marat TV: Taking New York
Posted 11/06/2009 @ 2 :17 PM

It's highly unlikely that anyone will ever refer to the past 12 years of men's tennis as the “Marat Safin era.” As much as he did over that time, and the man did a lot, it was his contemporary, Roger Federer, who achieved an epoch-defining stature. Instead Safin became the world’s most talented and temperamental sideshow, a show that will be airing its final episode next week at the Paris Masters.

Nine years ago, when the last ball of the 2000 U.S. Open had been hit, a “Safin era” seemed like a very real possibility. Just 20 years old, the Russian had dismantled the best player of the 1990s, Pete Sampras, in three quick sets in front of Sampras' home-country fans. Beyond that, Safin appeared to be an evolutionary leap for the sport. He was 6-foot-4 and blessed with fluid, impeccable timing on every stroke. His two-handed backhand was as much of a weapon as his forehand, and his return was as potent as his serve. He had all the makings of a new model for the men’s game.

The Safin era was destined to be a very short one. It lasted for two months, ending, for all intents and purposes, at the final tournament of that season, the Masters Cup in Lisbon. That’s where Gustavo Kuerten put on the performance of his life, beating Sampras and Andre Agassi on an indoor hard court and catching Safin, who lost in the semifinals, at the wire for the year-end No. 1 ranking. I remember being surprised by how devastated Safin was after this relative failure. You got the sense that it confirmed something that he suspected about himself, that he wasn’t a winner after all. Either Safin was right, or it was the first step in a career-long self-fulfilling prophecy.

Anyway, let’s take a look at the high point of Safin’s brief reign, the long, nerve-wracking final game against Sampras at Flushing Meadows.

—Right off we hear John McEnroe make a telling comment. Sampras is serving at 2-5 in the third, one game from losing the match. Safin has apparently hit a strong return, which McEnroe describes as “routine.” He goes on to say that Sampras’ kick serve bounces right into the “zone” of the 6-foot-4 Safin. McEnroe had identified two elements in the sport that would gain importance in the next decade: height, and the return of serve.

—The first observation we must make is how young Safin looks, of course. He would age pretty dramatically over the coming years. He lumbered around the court in between points even then, but he appears to be calm as he gets set to serve out his first major title. Even after opening the game with a double fault, he stays cool under the pressure of Sampras’ approaches, rifling two passing shot winners on the next two points.

—Sampras at 29 is sweaty and haggard. Ten years earlier, he had served notice of his own generation’s ascent by ending Ivan Lendl’s run of eight straight final-round appearances at the Open on his way to winning his first major. Seeing Sampras take one last stab at Safin—up until this game, he hadn’t had a break point—I have the same reaction I’ve had watching other old Sampras clips. Where I used to think of him as dull and a little smug, his demeanor now seems almost heroically controlled to me now. His method of competing is the opposite of someone like Rafael Nadal’s. Sampras was about not getting fired up; for him, it was about the long-term rather than the moment, about not getting especially high or low after any one point. You can see the conscious effort he makes to settle himself before each return.

—Each of Safin’s ground strokes would get a little longer and more elaborate over the years. I wonder if this hurt him. Here he’s prepared for anything Sampras throws at him.

—What a torturous game this must have been for Safin. He started with a double, missed every first serve until it was break point, and hit the tape with what must have seemed like a gimme backhand pass at deuce, allowing Sampras a second break point. But he held up like the future champion he wouldn't turn out to be. He saved both break points bravely, by moving to the net for a swinging volley and a spectacular stretch-back overhead. Then he swung the momentum permanently back in his direction by keeping his nerves at bay and outlasting Sampras through a long baseline rally. No wonder Safin got down on his knees and kissed the court afterward.

—Two quotes from Safin about this match remain two of his best, and show both sides of the man.

Afterward, he was asked if he was going to get drunk that night.

Safin: “Guys, do you want me to say ‘yes’ to put in the press? Between us, I hope so.”

Seven years later, after losing early at the Open, a reporter said, “When you won here in 2000, Sampras said you were able to be No. 1 in the world for as long a time as you wanted to.”

Safin: “See, even the geniuses make the mistakes. He was wrong.”

Was Sampras as wrong as Safin thought? The Russian was No. 1 for only a brief period. That wasn’t because he didn’t want to be there longer; it was because, at some point, perhaps as soon as Lisbon, he stopped believing he belonged there.

Whatever the reason, judging by the way Safin held off Sampras at the Open, he still believed he could be a great champion at this point. In that sense, the 2000 final is a glimpse of a potential alternate tennis history, one in which Safin kept his head and controlled his frustration at the biggest moments. As it was, it would happen only once more, in Australia in 2005. The rest of the time, we got the Safin show. The clip above gives us an idea of what the Safin era might have looked like.

***

We’ll see how the show ends in a few days. Have a good weekend
11/06/2009
And the video :
 
#3,098 ·
Agassi should return titles says Safin / AP / Tuesday, 10 November 2009

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/tennis/agassi-should-return-titles-says-safin-1817924.html

Former world No 1 Marat Safin believes that Andre Agassi should give his tennis titles back after confessing he tested positive for a banned substance during his career and lied about it to the ATP.

Agassi admitted in his book "Open" that he used crystal meth in 1997 and failed a drug test, a result he says was thrown out after he lied by saying he "unwittingly" took the substance.

Safin, who will retire this month, said in an interview with L'Equipe newspaper today that Agassi should "give his titles, his money and his Grand Slam titles" back.

"I'm not defending the ATP, but what he said put it in a delicate position," Safin said. "The ATP allowed him to win a lot of tournaments, a lot of money. It kept his secret. Why does he need to be so cruel with it?"

Agassi, who retired in 2006, won 60 titles, including eight Grand Slams, during his career. He recently told The Associated Press that he had to speak about his lies because he couldn't live with it anymore.

"If he is as fair play as he says he is, he has to go to the end," Safin said. "You know, the ATP has a bank account and he can give the money back if he wants."

Safin, who will retire after this week's Paris Masters, won the 2000 U.S. Open and 2005 Australian Open. The 29-year-old Russian said he isn't going to write his autobiography when his career will be over.

"Me, I don't need money," he said. "The question is: Why did he do this? What is done is done. Does he hope to sell more books? It's absolutely stupid."
 
#3,101 · (Edited)
Haha I saw somewhere that he would write a book if he ever needs money. :p

Ugh. I just can't shake off this feeling of loneliness,

I wonder what's gonna happen to this forum after Marat disappears from tennis.

People will eventually leave, and I am forced to lurk in Ernie's, Nole's, and the GM warzone.

:sad::sad::sad::sad::sad::sad::sad::sad::sad:
 
#3,102 ·
Not much new here... just some quotes about his schedule and how tough the last few mos have been for him:

http://www.tennishead.net/on-tour/reports/2009-11-10/safin-admits-the-end-is-nigh-and-slams-agassi/
After surviving three match points in his opening match at the BNP Paribas Masters 1000, Marat Safin has accepted that he is probably just one match away from retirement.

The former world No.1 edged past French qualifier Thierry Ascione 6-4 4-6 7-6(3) to reach the second round, where US Open champion Juan Martin del Potro lies in wait.

In a typically candid assessment, the Russian was the first to acknowledge that his chances of prolonging his final season are slim to none, with slim heading for the door.

“At the end of the day, I don’t think I’m going to be the winner,” the 29-year-old told reporters. And that, he added, is fine with him.

“The closer the end is, the tougher it gets,” he continued. “The second part of the year was really heavy. I didn’t want to leave the house, fly somewhere and be out of my home for three, four weeks.

“Picking up the bags, going to the airport, staying in traffic, passport control, waiting for the bags again, it was getting really heavy.”:sad:

The three-time Paris Masters champion, who announced at the start of 2009 that this was to be his final year on the ATP Tour, no longer has the heart for training, or even for chasing results.

“The second half of the year, I didn’t do much, basically,” he said. “I have no fitness coach travelling with me, so it’s just matches.

“The years before I was aiming to get as close as possible to the final and to earn some points,” he added. “Right now I don’t really care.”
The rest of the article was the Agassi stuff...
 
#3,104 ·
Thanks for posting that part maratsmaiden :)
I've had the feeling for sometime that the RG match killed the little hope he still had of doing something nice this year, so no wonder the second half of the year felt hard... In that context my hat's off to him for continuing to try to stay fit and keeping his schedule till the end.
 
#3,106 ·
Agassi should return titles says Safin – Well, he’s right, of course and bravo to him for having the balls to say it out loud.

"I'm not defending the ATP, but what he said put it in a delicate position," Safin said –Yes, you do. And if they don’t offer you some interesting position, they are a bunch of fools. Or do they?

"If he is as fair play as he says he is, he has to go to the end," Safin said. "You know, the ATP has a bank account and he can give the money back if he wants." – Bitch’s right.

The 29-year-old Russian said he isn't going to write his autobiography when his career will be over. – Pity. That must have been thrilling in a orgiastic decadent way … Hopefully, Tursunov will…

"Me, I don't need money," he said. – Verrryyy glad to hear it!!! I would hate my personal favorite “from rags to riches” needing money.

"The question is: Why did he do this? What is done is done. Does he hope to sell more books? It's absolutely stupid." – Homegirl being opinionated as usual… Please, just don’t get into politics!
 
#3,107 ·
Just posted @ BleacherReport:

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/288163-at-last-safin-goes-down-swinging



Game, Set, Career.

Marat Safin waved goodbye to the ATP Tour Wednesday after a powerhouse performance against Juan Martin Del Potro at Bercy.

The final scoreboard showed a 6-4 5-7 6-4 victory for the Argentine, but Safin gave his best performance of the year and came away with warm cheers from a supportive crowd. Following the match, tournament organizers presented him with a key to the city where he's won three times.

The Russian came to play, not submit to a farewell beating. He served 15 aces to DelPo's 11, saved seven break points, and found winners in every corner. The storied backhand down the line was on display, and Safin challenged the U.S. Open champion with his signature touch of finesse at the net.

It's been said that on any given day, Safin is the game's greatest talent. Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, among others, are consistently better. But no one has been blessed with so many natural gifts for the sport as the mercurial Russian.

Those gifts were showcased in two of the finest matches ever played: the 2000 U.S. Open final, a demolishing of Pete Sampras, and the 2005 Australian Open semi-final where Safin dealt a crushing blow to Federer's 26-match winning streak.

Though injuries and self-berating kept Safin from seriously challenging Federer's dominance over the last decade, the big man leaves tennis with an immeasurable gap to fill.

Finding a replacement for the prototype body, the marquee good looks, and the fighting spirit won't be so hard. Del Potro matches Safin in height and build, Fernando Verdasco and Feliciano Lopez hold their own in the cover model category, and any number of players bring heart. But who else has all these traits combined with the larger-than-life showmanship, brooding intellect, and sharp wit? Will there ever be a tennis star -- not player -- as complete as Marat Safin?

Asked in his closing ceremony what his greatest memories of tennis are, he swiftly answered, "Today. . . . this is the day where all my memories will be in one box. I'm closing one door, hopefully another door will be opened."

Safin once said, "On court, some secret features of a character start appearing. You can't hide anything." He has famously been an open book both on the baseline and in the press room, but one well-kept secret is his post-retirement plan.

The 29-year-old says he wants to achieve more, taking up another profession. He's hinted at studying law and business, but gives no specifics, saying only that he'll begin with time on a beach somewhere to decompress.

When asked whether he'll simply disappear, he reassured fans, "You'll see me." And, we will. Safin plans to make an encore appearance in January's Hong Kong Tennis Classic exhibition.

As the jumbotron in Paris aptly read today, "Merci, Marat. A bientot." Thank you, indeed.

Story: Andrea Nay
Photo: Reuters
 
#3,111 ·
Marat TV: Knocking Out the Federer

Posted 11/11/2009 @ 3 :30 PM


The long, ragged farewell was brought to a suitable end today. Marat Safin, 6-foot-4 champion of the past, lost his last match to a 6-foot-5 champion of the future, Juan Martin del Potro. You might say a torch was passed—both guys beat all-time champions at the U.S. Open as 20-year-olds to win their first majors—except that I’m not sure del Potro is looking to pick this particular torch up and run with it.

But Safin’s loss was appropriate, and so was the manner in which it transpired. As usual, he showed flashes of flowing brilliance, and as usual, he couldn’t summon them at the very end of a tight match. For today, let’s remember one of the exceptions to that Safin rule, the best match he ever played, and one where he summoned his flowing brilliance all to the way into the 15th round.

If any match is worthy of a music-video treatment, if was Safin’s 9-7-in-the-fifth-set win over Roger Federer, the man he called “the Federer,” in the semifinals of the 2005 Australian Open. That’s the treatment it gets here, to the tune of the Who’s “Baba O’Reilly.” And once you get used to it, it does add a certain momentum to these highlights. My favorite line from the song—“I don’t need to be forgiven”—might even sum up Safin’s career as he walks away.

—Unlike most YouTube highlight reels, this one doesn’t show entire points. It’s cut all the way down to the memorable strokes. It gives you an idea of what these guys were doing best that day, and how many shots still stick in the collective tennis memory from this match.

—On Federer’s side, there’s a drop shot that’s threaded so finely it can only be described as vicious. There’s a shot-hop backhand pass that could be sent off in a time capsule as an example of his smoothness under pressure. There’s a skyhook overhead, and an inside-out backhand return winner that seems to shock Safin. And there’s the ill-advised tweener he tried at match point in the fourth set. He didn’t need to hit it, and the choice cost him.

—On Safin’s side, there’s a half-volley drop shot winner that shows off McEnroe-like touch. There are numerous thudding backhands up the line, culminating in the best of the evening, the one that brought Federer to his knees on the final point. And then there’s the get Safin made and the lob he hit over Federer to save that match point in the fourth set. Did we know he could run that fast?

—Safin’s confidence and determination grow as these highlights accumulate. He has said that winning this tournament was very important to him because he needed to prove to himself that he could take home a second major. He was never a guy who could keep that level of belief up for long, but perhaps doing it this time was enough for him. He’ll always know that he really was that good.

—The match reminds me of the del Potro-Federer Open final in many ways. You have a taller, heavier hitter trying to batter through the skinny, springy Federer and his wildly curving shots. In both of those matches, as well as in the 2008 Wimbledon final, Federer almost snuck through a match where his opponent was playing lights-out, only to lose in the end.

—Fittingly, this one ends on a high note. You can see some exhaustion from both guys in the fifth set, but after nailing all those backhands down the line, Safin puts the last one even closer to the corner. That’s how accurate he was with it that day. Federer finally succumbed, but he forced Safin to throw the final punch and literally knock him to the ground.

—I may miss Safin's handshakes the most. Win or lose, he was always respectful of his opponent; he always realized it was just a game—in some ways, he was too gentlemanly. At first I was surprised by his harsh reactions this week to the Agassi revelations. But then he was always a guy who believed in the solidarity of the players, that it shouldn't be every man for himself. It makes sense that he would see Agassi as betraying that.

Notice also his muted celebration here. It was exactly like his muted celebrations after both of his Slam wins. He doesn’t want to revel in his opponent’s defeat, and he knows that winning a tennis match is not the most important thing in this world. That attitude might have hurt him as a player, but it made him a favorite of everyone who played with him and those of us who watched him. He was one of the guys. And in his “failures”—to master his nerves, to discipline himself, to live up to his potential—Safin was one of us.

***

There's more from me on Marat over at ESPN.com. Paris talk tomorrow.
From Steve Tignor's blog at Tennis.com
 
#3,112 ·
Steve Tignor has Marat fever today. :lol: (This is the ESPN.com blog mentioned at the end of the above post)

Five things we'll miss about Marat

Wednesday, November 11, 20009
Posted by Stephen Tignor, TENNIS.com

Bet on it: At some point in the near future, you will hear the following words. "I wish tennis still had guys like Marat Safin, crazy guys who would smash all their racquets. That's when the game had personality."

In this way, Safin is destined to become the modern-day Ilie Nastase. Like Nasty, he was blessed with otherworldly talent, but not with the mental discipline to consistently make the most of it. Each ended his career with two Grand Slam titles, but each will be remembered primarily as a charismatic character rather than a champion.

That's only fair, but there will be more to miss about Safin than just his ability to splinter a stick. Here are five aspects of the man and his game that tennis will be poorer without.

The sound of his shots
If greatness in tennis were measured sonically, Safin would be the player of the era, not Roger Federer. Whether he was practicing around the corner from you, or playing in the final of a major, there was no mistaking the thudding echo of the ball coming off his strings, especially when he rifled a winning backhand up the line.

Speaking of that backhand …
Safin squandered much of his talent, but he had such a surfeit of it that he still made a lasting contribution to the sport's evolution. When he debuted in the late-90s, he was one of the first men to take the two-hander up the line for a winner on a regular basis. Until then, the inside-out forehand, as developed by Ivan Lendl and Jim Courier, had dominated. The all-around slugfest that characterizes the men's game today was born.

His sense of honor
After his final match Wednesday, Safin said, "I've been great to everybody, even if I had a few fights with chair umpires." More than his achievements, this seems to have been what Safin valued most. His solidarity with his fellow players didn't help him win matches; if he lacked anything essential as a player, it was a killer instinct. But I'll miss his postmatch handshakes, and the respect he showed his opponents whether he'd won or lost. It was the same respect that led him to keep his celebrations muted even after he won his Grand Slams. He was one of the guys.

His human side
The popular belief is that Safin was too much of a hothead to be a champion. But his problem may have been that he was too normal. He didn't love having to get up and hit the same shot over and over and over every day. He didn't love answering questions about his life. He often couldn't master his nerves in close matches. He had good days followed by bad and found it hard to keep his eyes glued to the ultimate goal. Does this sound like anyone you know? Yourself, perhaps?

His fans
Tennis needs champions and warriors, but a good-looking rogue doesn't hurt, either. You could always tell one of his matches was happening just by the feeling in air around it -- there was an edgy sense of anticipation. The court overflowed with fans who were waiting -- hoping -- for the big guy to blow a gasket. Just like I'll miss hearing his strings hitting a ball, I'll miss walking into a side court at a Slam and hearing the crowd's buzz. It wasn't a buzzy, really; it was a titter. What other proof of Safin's value to the sport do we need? A million girls around the world can't be wrong.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/blog/index?entryID=4645348&name=tennis
 
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