Facing Safin

Sampras and Safin after the 2000 U.S.Open final.

Let us try to tell the story about one of the most intriguing champions in the history of tennis. Marat Mubinovich Safin was born on January 27, 1980 in Moscow, Russia to father Mikhail, the director of the Spartak Tennis Club, and mother Rauza, who coached Marat from age six to thirteen.

In 1993 the family decided to send their skinny boy to Valencia, Spain, where he would train under the guidance of Rafael Mensua, which he did until age 19.

"My mother put me into tennis. I didn't want to play tennis at all," recalled Safin of his early tennis years. "I wanted to play soccer all my life. But my mother, she knows the best of what the son needs."

Whatever misgivings Safin had about hitting a tennis ball, he became not just a very good competitor but, for a time, the preeminent champion of the sport.

Safin won his first ATP World Tour title in 1999 in Boston, two years after turning pro. Four more titles followed in 2000, including the legendary US Open triumph, a remarkable upset and straight set annihilation of American Pete Sampras, 6-4, 6-3, 6-3.

The 29-year-old Sampras had won his last eight consecutive Grand Slam finals. It was the first time Sampras had ever lost a major final in straight sets. "You're going to be hearing a lot about this guy," said the conquered American.

Safin earned the ATP World no. 1 ranking in November 2000 and held it for two weeks before Gustavo Kuerten took over the throne after winning the World Tour Finals in Lisbon, Portugal. Safin went on to win over 400 tour matches, regained the no. 1 ranking for two more stints in 2001, and won a second Grand Slam title in Australia in 2005.

Here are thoughts from some of coaches, players and media observers who knew him.

Marat Safin put on the most daunting display of power and counter-power against Pete Sampras this writer has ever seen in a Grand Slam final," wrote Eugene L. Scott in his Tennis Week magazine column.

I Ioved him as a kid. I still love him.

My first memory of Marat was I think his third or fourth day. His mother came with him to the courts. When he was just born.

His third or fourth day of his life! His mother just came. She wanted to walk with him at the club. And he was a baby. This was first time that I saw him.

Russian Coach Boris Sobkin knew Safin literally from the first days of his life.

He has really strong character obviously. Not easy when you're talking with him because he really wants to stay on his point of view. For me, he is strong personality. But I love this kid, honestly. For me he is still a kid.

In Spain he became a baseline player. Before, when he was a kid, he was always going to the net. Because I practice with him a lot, like sparring partner. He loved to go to the net. In Spain, you know, they put him on the baseline.

This is from one side. From another side, he became a sportsman there. I think he was already a sportsman when he went there because he was maybe twelve years of age then. Anyway, in his mind, he was already big champion.

Maybe it would have been tough for him to practice with parents. I understand. Because I was coaching my son. It's not easy. He became an unbelievable player. I believe that it could be even much better. My opinion.

Many years ago there were two young boys at the Academy. They were 13. Marcelo Rios and Marat Safin. I gave the scholarship to Rios.

To the other one I said, son, maybe try next time. Every time Marat sees me he tells me, "Nick, you made a mistake."

Marat was a tortured soul according to Dmitry Tursunov.

I think everybody has an opinion on him. The kind of obvious is that he was sort of a sex symbol. I think he's like they say, a tormented soul.

He had a lot of interests outside of tennis and he loved to live life to the fullest. I think tennis doesn't let you do that a lot of times. I know a lot of people are saying he wasted his talent.

But I don't think it was his biggest priority in life. He's a smart guy. He analyzes quite well. I think there is more to life than tennis at the end of the day. Which I think is what makes Rafa and Roger so great--they're able to stay focused for such a long period of time. And it really separates them.

And Novak as well, Andy Murray. Their dedication to the game and love for the game is bigger than for anything else apparently. So I think Marat wasn't like that. It's hard to blame him for trying to enjoy life, trying to experience things that tennis allowed him to experience of course.

At the end of the day, if everyone is put in his shoes, would we act different if we were in his place?

Let's put it this way: I think someone ultimately said, girls wanted to be with him, guys wanted to be like him. So I think that kind of sums him up nicely.

He was definitely extremely talented in tennis. He's good looking, smart. I think sometimes when you have that many gifts, it's a problem. I think that's his curse: he has too many things going for him.

If he was ugly maybe he'd just work so much harder on the court. Just to get attention. But at the end of the day I think we're all looking for recognition. And he was able to just find it pretty much anywhere he went.

One year he left a whole bunch of suitcases in the stringing room, full of adidas attire. He left it there and the next year when he came back, he was asked, do you want your stuff from last year? Marat replied, "No, just throw it out. I don't care." It was a lot of nice, expensive Adidas clothes. Just throw it out. It was 2002, 2003, possibly 2004."

"Another year I was out at Indian Wells for him and Bob and Mike Bryan doing the stringing out of a hotel room for them. And every night I was walking over to where he was, which was across the street at the Hyatt.

I'd just pick up his rackets every night and then in the morning leave them at the front desk for him. Each night we'd meet in the hotel lobby, there he would be with a girl on each arm. He'd say, "Same thing, just get 'em done by the morning." He'd just walk off, a woman on each arm.

Safin with some of his rackets, mostly broken.

At the time I think we were doing 35 kilos main, 24 kilos cross, with natural gut in the cross, Luxilon Power Rough in the main. And I also had the dubious distinction of being the last person of Jay's Custom Stringing to actually work on his rackets, where I'm guessing a screw up on my part cost us him as a client.

I get a call from his agent at 10 pm at night. He said Marat needs a dozen rackets --yesterday. I was exhausted already by the time I got the phone call and of course you had no choice but to get things done.

So I get the rackets on Federal Express first thing in the morning. Got all the rackets done, he's playing, everything is good. Happy with his rackets. Until he's in the middle of a point. And he serves and the handle stays in his hand, the racket goes flying.

I guess I didn't use enough epoxy to connect the handle onto the racket. And supposedly, what I was told, when he decided to cancel the contract he had with us, he had his agent give us a message: "Tell Jay to go fuck himself. He just cost me the match."

You never knew with Marat. He was just so wonderfully entertaining like that. First match, first point, he could suddenly break eight rackets in his bag and is down to his last one.

Remember that French Open against Felix Mantilla, when he decided to destroy the Perrier sign at the side of the chair umpire?

I'm sitting there at my home, my father and I are watching him play on TV. And he decided to break - I had sent him fifteen fresh rackets at the start of that French Open --we watched him proceed to break at least half if not more of the rackets.

The emotions were like: I just killed myself making all this stuff for you. And now I have to go back to the drawing board and start a new batch for you.

But the guy was a lot of fun to be around. You never knew what was going to come up with next.

One day everything is spectacular, the next day, l'm gonna change everything up. Change the grip, change the overgrip, change the strings, change the tension. Like, Okay, sure, you're in the middle of a tournament, you're doing well. And Marat said, "Yeah, yeah, I need to do this."

It makes no sense. Everybody else is very consistent. They'll wait until they lose, they try something new or different at the next tournament. Or next time they have off.

Just after he played Federer at the Australian Open and ended up winning that marathon, 5-7, 6-4, 5-7, 7-6. Just after that, I forget who convinced him, just before the clay season, try a full polyester string. Because he was using full natural gut for years.

"He went from full gut to full polyester and then to polyester hybrids in just a short span of two months, three months. For decent club players that's a bit of a change, let alone for somebody who at the time was ranked top five in the world. He would make drastic changes like that.

The guy was so emotional. He had so much talent. The wonderful brilliance. The hot and cold. One day he would love the sport, two seconds later absolutely hate the sport. Say I'm ready to retire.

Then there he is back out there the next day, winning, and having a great match. It was wonderful.

I think he tried to love tennis. I don't know if he truly did. Because there were days, like I said, he absolutely loved it. And days he wanted to say I hate this, I'm done. I'm retiring and never picking up a tennis racket again.

It was in the later nineties at the US Open. I got to see Sampras, Agassi, Safin and I think Kafelnikov all on the same practice court at the US Open. At that time the stars still practiced at the side courts close to the spectators without any fear or problems. Although there were matches going on all over, the crowds started to gather around their practice court.

All the players enjoyed the attention and took the workout lightly when all of a sudden Marat Safin unleashed a forehand I and probably anyone else had never seen before. You could see it even on the faces of Sampras, Agassi and Kafelnikov's - that they were in awe of it and actually laughing when Safin rolled up his short sleeve shirt and showed playfully his muscles.

The crowd went crazy and the atmosphere was more like that of a match at center court. I still after all those years remember this episode. You couldn't dislike him.

He tried to be a bit of a prankster. It was always invariably amusing with him. He's generally a funny guy. But he could also be prickly at times, certainly after losing, like a lot of players. But overall, you could get amusement out of Marat.

I think it was highlighted at the Australian Open when he reached the final, then again when he won it. TV cameras would always be honing in on invariably three women and you don't know where they came from.

And he wouldn't divulge where he met them or anything like that. But they were always attractive. That was Marat. He was such a lovable character. You couldn't dislike him. Because there was always something there that left you amused.

I never actually spoke to Marat but we used to see him in the bar at the Hyatt at Indian Wells, drinking vodka with two beautiful women. At the time we speculated they might be professionals. Then the three of them would go outside on the patio and smoke cigarettes and come back in for another drink.

Prototypical ATP style strokes on both sides.

I filmed him in high speed video around 2000 and when you look at that footage today you see in addition to his talent, he was technically ahead of his time.

Both his forehand and backhand were prototypical ATP style strokes as we have come to understand them in recent years. You see the compact outside backswings on both sides with the hands staying to the side of the body.

As Brian Gordon has explained, although more compact than the backswings of Agassi or Sampras, this positioning actually turbo charges the shoulders and adds power on both sides. Maybe that explains something about the overwhelming nature of his game.

I'm not fighting anything and I'm just trying to play and I'm trying to have fun. Sometimes I have ups, sometimes I have downs. But I'm trying to make my life easier and enjoy it and it's a difficult job. You have to also understand it's not every day it's a great time and it's sunny and you play great tennis.

In tennis, you're completely stressed the whole time. That is what I hate about it. It's just too much. There is no rest for the brain at all. Now I have no schedule, no practices, nothing. I belong to myself. Tomorrow I'll wake up and see what I can do.

I totally understand him.

Facing Safin

Scoop Malinowski