Interview: Marat Safin

Exit Strategy

Though at times this year his play has been underwhelming, the ever enigmatic and entertaining Marat Safin has been able to use his 2009 campaign as an opportunity to say goodbye to the world of professional tennis. We sat down with the two-time major champ the day before the start of this year's U.S. Open, where Safin, the 2000 titlist, lost in the first round


By TOM PERROTTA
Story from Tennis.com


Safin, 29, held forth on topics ranging from the tour, his career, his ego, the mountains, religion, marriage, children-everything except kickboxing. Part one of the interview is below; click here for part two.

What did you want from your last season?

Marat Safin: First of all, you need to enjoy because it's been 12 years on tour. Some people they continue playing more than 12 years, they like it so much. I just realized that it was starting to get tougher and tougher, all the things, to travel and to play and to practice, and having matches and to travel again. It got too heavy for me, so I decided to move on to something different, something else. I think it's the right decision and I don't regret anything. Just to enjoy the last year, nice atmosphere around the courts, not to forget this feeling.

Has the farewell tour been what you expected, then?

I thought it would be a little bit slightly different, all these feelings toward the tournaments. It's a little bit different, different from what I thought-it's difficult to explain. 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. But of course it's nice, it's nice to know that it's over-last time [at the U.S. Open], last time in L.A., last time in Cincinnati-just enjoy it. I don't want to have any more stress.

Everyone knows Safin the pro. Not as many people know where you came from. How would you describe it?

[I] started from zero, from scratch, no money-not a beautiful story coming from the Soviet Union that had been stuck for 70 years with communism. There was no cash, nothing to play with, no racquets, no balls, it was terrible and not really simple to break through. I was lucky that some of the sponsors appeared in Moscow, they were trying to break into the Russian market. They just took care of me without any questions, they just gave me the money and hoped for a breakthrough.

Your mother started you in tennis. Was there a lot of pressure on you?

There was no pressure, how can you have pressure? To get better at what? There is no chance to break through anywhere. No one believed in something, that [we] would end up playing tournaments and winning the Grand Slam-nobody even thought about it, not even close. In the 90s we broke the wall, so basically the first trips to normal, decent countries was in the 90s. How do you expect someone who saw maybe Wimbledon 30 minutes a day would be here? (...)

Read the whole interview at Tennis.com


(Published: 11.11.2009.)