Marat Safin almost played the last match of his career yesterday, fighting past three match points to beat the 168 ranked Thierry Ascione at the Paris Masters. After that close call, Marat told the ATP that he wants “to retire with dignity.” He also said that it won’t be “too painful” to lose to his next opponent, Juan Martin del Potro. You know it’s time to retire when your interviews start to sound like appeals for euthanasia. Oh, Marat:
Marat was also featured in L’Equipe this week, reminiscing as only Marat can on the various high/lowlights of his career. Thanks to the folks at Mens Tennis Forum for posting and translating – I’ve posted some snippets below, click here for more.
Photo via L’Equipe via Mens Tennis Forum
On beating Pete Sampras in the 2000 US Open final:
“The match changed my life. Everything was new for me. It allowed me to become world number 1 a few weeks later but I wasn’t ready to handle the pressure. In the evening at the bar, I was still nervous. I had to drink a few vodkas to calm down, to come back down. I was too young. Nobody could guide me. Such a big thing engages your secret feelings, your own weaknesses. It’s not the kind of thing you can share with anyone. I didn’t feel good in my own skin. I didn’t enjoy myself as much as I should have.”
“Vodka!”
Part 2, just for the heck of it:
Whisky! Marat on his 2007 mountaineering misadventure:
“I was tired of tennis. I want to escape the circuit. Some of my friends were going to hike in Tibet and I asked if I could go with them. We managed to reach Cho You (at about 4000m), that was our camp, but I had headaches. They went on to reach the summit but I gave up. I had not taken any pills with me. I thought myself an athlete but I never had thought I could feel so bad. The only thing that helped was whisky. When you take a sip, you feel better for a couple of hours. The pressure and the headache go away. But it comes back, more painful. How much whisky would I have needed to drink in a month?“
Marat-the-Mountaineer via TennisInfoBlog
On retirement:
“I think that I am at the best age to retire. I have no family, no kids, I’m still young and I can discover new things. When you are older, there are many things you can’t do anymore like studying. He has a family, a daughter. We all have our way to deal with life. I would like to study law, just the basics to have the keys to do well in the business world, to have a better understanding of the working world.”
Here’s Safin trying out some of his amateur legal skills on a chair umpire – the famous “cigar and two chicks” argument:
On nemesis and fellow-retiree Fabrice Santoro:
“Fabrice, it seems he’s been around since 1800!”
On breaking his racquets:
“I must have broken 500 or 600 rackets in my career. When you think about it, many players who used the (HEAD) Prestige broke their rackets. Alonso, Ivanisevic, Arazi… These racquets are too fragile.”
Here’s an 8 minute long video of Marat and his racquets, if you have a racquet abuse fetish:
Marat Safin, who sided with Gasquet in his recent recreational drug troubles with the ATP, has taken a hard line against Andre Agassi and his drug test cover-up (via tennis.com):
“OK, so he feels guilty? Then he should give back his titles, his money and his Grand Slams. If he’s about fair play, he should go all the way. You know, the ATP have a bank account, he can pay them back if he wants to. I’m not defending the ATP, but what he said puts them in a bad position. The ATP allowed him to win lots of tournaments and lots of money and kept his secret, so why be bad to them?“
“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.“
Here’s Marat winning a “classic” against a post-meth Agassi at the 2004 Australian Open:
Safin plays Del Potro tomorrow in an afternoon match in Paris.
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