SAFINATOR
Marat Safin, probably the world's most talented tennis player, smacks an easy ball into the net and pretends to cry. Then he extends a hand and lets it tremble. The Russian is always happy to make his internal state external, even in front of thousands of people. The scoreboard says he is playing the Spanish journeyman Felix Mantilla in the second round of the French Open, but the truth is that for three hours Safin has been playing against himself.
It is 8.30pm on Thursday, a chilly night is descending over Paris, and Safin's volley has stopped functioning. He keeps coming to the net as if sucked there, but keeps missing. Sometimes he strokes the volleys in slow-motion, like a beginner practising, but still they miss. He loses the tiebreak of the fourth set by netting a ball that a Sunday player would have put away. After yet another error, he cries: "So burned out! So fucking burned out!" He says it in English, but Safin is as fluent berating himself in Spanish.
In the endless final set, he flies across court to catch a Mantilla drop-shot, and miraculously puts it away for a winner. While the Spaniard stares at him aghast, Safin, inspired, pulls down his shorts. The crowd cheers - female fans love the goateed 6ft 5in Russian bear - but the umpire penalises him a point. A journalist in the press stand mutters: "He's mad, a nutter." This is how the sports pages normally characterise Safin. In fact, in a sport that produces few Dostoevskian characters, Safin is one.
His background is unremarkable - at least for his generation of tennis players. His mother, Rausa Islanova, was a tennis coach in Moscow. When her son was a toddler, and uninterested in the game, she put him on court. When he was 13, she shipped him off to a tennis academy in Valencia. Mrs Safin remains a presence, sometimes interrupting her boy's press conferences with calls to his mobile. Safin considers himself lucky to have escaped the fate of his sister Dinara Safina, now the 36th-ranked women's player, who was kept at home and coached by their mother.
Yet Mrs Safin's plan worked. Her son became the complete tennis player. Aged only 20 he hammered Pete Sampras in the 2000 US Open final, playing what Sampras called "the tennis of the future". And that was it. Safin has never won another grand-slam title. "Probably it was a mistake to win that tournament," he reflected in Paris this week. "If I had not won the US Open, I would probably have won more grand slams."
Everyone finds it infuriating. Safin on form blasts every shot to the corners of the court, except for his drop-shot, which he could land on an ant without disturbing it. Mats Wilander, one of Safin's many former coaches, says he has the most complete arsenal of strokes of any player ever. Russia's Davis Cup captain Shamil Tarpischev sighs: "He could be as dominant as Michael Jordan was or Michael Schumacher, Tiger Woods. Unfortunately, he has the talent but not the desire to be the world number one."
In fact, Safin seems to wrestle with the question of desire. When I asked whether he had considered quitting tennis, he replied: "Everybody does. Many times in his life. Because the game is so hard, because there is a lot of pressure, because it's a tough job." This, incidentally, demonstrates the cruelty of the tennis tour. You never hear young basketball or soccer players musing about retirement. So why did he return, after a few happy months off last year with a wrist injury? "I could give you a thousand reasons. Because tennis is my job, because I have no life if I don't play tennis, because I am 24 years old and one of the best."
on Friday afternoon he finally disposed of Mantilla, taking the fifth set 11-9, and in today's third round he faces the Italian upstart Potito Starace. For most top players, this would be a routine victory. But Safin won't be playing Starace. He'll be playing himself, a much tougher opponent.
His frequent meltdowns are, he believes, the flipside of his thrilling style. "I'm not consistent because I'm not waiting for mistakes and playing from the baseline and running from side to side," he says. "My tennis, actually, is 90 per cent about risk. And when you have no confidence, it's difficult to push down the line on important points."
Or indeed, on Thursday's evidence, to hit the ball over the net at all. What Safin doesn't add is that tennis is hardest when you think - as he does - about every ball you hit. The great champions, notably Bjorn Borg, inhabit the so-called "zone", where the body seems to do everything on autopilot. Safin is too reflective for that.
"If I don't win in Paris," he said months ago, "in that city that's so special to me, later I won't be able to look back contented on my tennis years." He probably won't win it this time. But the rest of us can enjoy watching his torment.
It is 8.30pm on Thursday, a chilly night is descending over Paris, and Safin's volley has stopped functioning. He keeps coming to the net as if sucked there, but keeps missing. Sometimes he strokes the volleys in slow-motion, like a beginner practising, but still they miss. He loses the tiebreak of the fourth set by netting a ball that a Sunday player would have put away. After yet another error, he cries: "So burned out! So fucking burned out!" He says it in English, but Safin is as fluent berating himself in Spanish.
In the endless final set, he flies across court to catch a Mantilla drop-shot, and miraculously puts it away for a winner. While the Spaniard stares at him aghast, Safin, inspired, pulls down his shorts. The crowd cheers - female fans love the goateed 6ft 5in Russian bear - but the umpire penalises him a point. A journalist in the press stand mutters: "He's mad, a nutter." This is how the sports pages normally characterise Safin. In fact, in a sport that produces few Dostoevskian characters, Safin is one.
His background is unremarkable - at least for his generation of tennis players. His mother, Rausa Islanova, was a tennis coach in Moscow. When her son was a toddler, and uninterested in the game, she put him on court. When he was 13, she shipped him off to a tennis academy in Valencia. Mrs Safin remains a presence, sometimes interrupting her boy's press conferences with calls to his mobile. Safin considers himself lucky to have escaped the fate of his sister Dinara Safina, now the 36th-ranked women's player, who was kept at home and coached by their mother.
Yet Mrs Safin's plan worked. Her son became the complete tennis player. Aged only 20 he hammered Pete Sampras in the 2000 US Open final, playing what Sampras called "the tennis of the future". And that was it. Safin has never won another grand-slam title. "Probably it was a mistake to win that tournament," he reflected in Paris this week. "If I had not won the US Open, I would probably have won more grand slams."
Everyone finds it infuriating. Safin on form blasts every shot to the corners of the court, except for his drop-shot, which he could land on an ant without disturbing it. Mats Wilander, one of Safin's many former coaches, says he has the most complete arsenal of strokes of any player ever. Russia's Davis Cup captain Shamil Tarpischev sighs: "He could be as dominant as Michael Jordan was or Michael Schumacher, Tiger Woods. Unfortunately, he has the talent but not the desire to be the world number one."
In fact, Safin seems to wrestle with the question of desire. When I asked whether he had considered quitting tennis, he replied: "Everybody does. Many times in his life. Because the game is so hard, because there is a lot of pressure, because it's a tough job." This, incidentally, demonstrates the cruelty of the tennis tour. You never hear young basketball or soccer players musing about retirement. So why did he return, after a few happy months off last year with a wrist injury? "I could give you a thousand reasons. Because tennis is my job, because I have no life if I don't play tennis, because I am 24 years old and one of the best."
on Friday afternoon he finally disposed of Mantilla, taking the fifth set 11-9, and in today's third round he faces the Italian upstart Potito Starace. For most top players, this would be a routine victory. But Safin won't be playing Starace. He'll be playing himself, a much tougher opponent.
His frequent meltdowns are, he believes, the flipside of his thrilling style. "I'm not consistent because I'm not waiting for mistakes and playing from the baseline and running from side to side," he says. "My tennis, actually, is 90 per cent about risk. And when you have no confidence, it's difficult to push down the line on important points."
Or indeed, on Thursday's evidence, to hit the ball over the net at all. What Safin doesn't add is that tennis is hardest when you think - as he does - about every ball you hit. The great champions, notably Bjorn Borg, inhabit the so-called "zone", where the body seems to do everything on autopilot. Safin is too reflective for that.
"If I don't win in Paris," he said months ago, "in that city that's so special to me, later I won't be able to look back contented on my tennis years." He probably won't win it this time. But the rest of us can enjoy watching his torment.
0 comentarios