Re: News & Articles Part 3 - The Return of the Yeti
Quote:
Originally Posted by KarlyM
Thanks for typing that up ad-out!
So Marat isn't a Eric Clapton fan. The mountain story had me cracking up.
I going to try to find this magazine - not so easy to do in my snowy neck of the woods.
I think you can only get it through the USTA. Our tennis shops didn't sell it! The pictures were funny.. Sorry I couldn't find a way to get them in here.
Re: News & Articles Part 3 - The Return of the Yeti
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.
Re: News & Articles Part 3 - The Return of the Yeti
Quote:
Originally Posted by ad-out
I think you can only get it through the USTA. Our tennis shops didn't sell it! The pictures were funny.. Sorry I couldn't find a way to get them in here.
Tennis Magazine is sold in stores (I've seen it and have bought a few issues in the past). The problem is where I am, it's only sold in the big bookstores (and not regularly), and they are quite a distance from where I live. BTW, a subscription does come with the USTA membership.
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 :
__________________ Hippo, hippo! Parting is such sweet sorrow
That I shall say hippo till it be morrow.
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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."
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.”
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...
__________________
"My friend, there is nothing so sexy as a woman who is angry. Perhaps when she is even throwing things." MS
Re: News & Articles Part 3 - The Return of the Yeti
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.
Re: News & Articles Part 3 - The Return of the Yeti
Quote:
Originally Posted by luxsword
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
News & Articles Part 3 - The Return of the Yeti
Re: News & Articles Part 3 - The Return of the Yeti
The mountain story had me cracking up. 
BTW, a subscription does come with the USTA membership.
A young, smiling and laughing SASHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA 
