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Marat Safin: "Lying Around Doing Nothing Doesn't Interest Me"
by Andrey Ivantsov
Russia's Marat Safin keeps trying to get back into the world tennis elite after a serious knee injury, which forced him to miss the second half of last year's season. Until now Safin's most successful performance was in Valencia where he reached semifinals. Other tournaments were less successful and that caused Marat to drop to a humiliating 95th position in the ATP rankings. Prior to an Indianapolis tournament, where Marat is planning to fight fate yet again, our correspondent decided to ask the player whether he was not fed up with that.
There has been certain information in the press that you have gotten pretty tired of all this non-resultful battle...
This is not true and people who say that are just trying to provoke. It's really hard for me right now. I was counting to slowly rise in the rankings and I am falling down...(after a pause) But this is not the reason to quit fighting. We have Andre Agassi's example before us, who successfully returned to tennis after a long break being out of top 100. So rankings are not the most important thing, it's finding your game which is. And this will definitely happen this year. Two-three serious wins and I will be unstoppable.
So the quality of the game is much more important now than the results?
Well, ideally I would love to have both of course. When I was just starting to get ready to come back on court in winter my coach Peter Lundgren used to say: don't rush, be careful. I on the other hand was dying to run out and catch up on everything I had missed 6 months before. As a result the plan of knee rehabilitation almost fell to pieces: the knee started killing me again, that's when I realised that rushing can cost me a fortune.
You are quite a famous man with loads of famous friends and connections, why do you wanna keep torturing your body? Kournikova, for example, plays exhibition tournaments, does commercials, lives a great life...
It only seems that such a popular guy like me will have no problem finding himself outside tennis. In reality it's practically impossible. Business? You have to spend tons of time on it every day, know the stuff. For a person like me who spent all of his life playing tennis it's impossible and simply selling my face and name and then lying around doing nothing is not interesting for me. I am used to living with a drive which tennis provides fully.
What's more difficult for you: getting back on track physically or psychologically?
Physically I am feeling very well right now, maybe my legs are a little too weak, but I have a strong head, which is the most important in sports.
On a number of occasions Peter Lundgren said that recently your character has changed to a great extent. How exactly?
Probably I started cherishing people that surround me more - family, friends. In autumn when I was curing the knee I used to watch other players on TV and realised: I am just an ordinary guy...plus limping (laughs). It will be very difficult in this life for a guy like me without the love and support of people close to me. And all this image and populatiry stuff it's just a glittery wrap of a beautiful box, which needs to have something grand inside that cannot be measured in money terms.
Marat Safin: "Lying Around Doing Nothing Doesn't Interest Me"
by Andrey Ivantsov
Russia's Marat Safin keeps trying to get back into the world tennis elite after a serious knee injury, which forced him to miss the second half of last year's season. Until now Safin's most successful performance was in Valencia where he reached semifinals. Other tournaments were less successful and that caused Marat to drop to a humiliating 95th position in the ATP rankings. Prior to an Indianapolis tournament, where Marat is planning to fight fate yet again, our correspondent decided to ask the player whether he was not fed up with that.
There has been certain information in the press that you have gotten pretty tired of all this non-resultful battle...
This is not true and people who say that are just trying to provoke. It's really hard for me right now. I was counting to slowly rise in the rankings and I am falling down...(after a pause) But this is not the reason to quit fighting. We have Andre Agassi's example before us, who successfully returned to tennis after a long break being out of top 100. So rankings are not the most important thing, it's finding your game which is. And this will definitely happen this year. Two-three serious wins and I will be unstoppable.
So the quality of the game is much more important now than the results?
Well, ideally I would love to have both of course. When I was just starting to get ready to come back on court in winter my coach Peter Lundgren used to say: don't rush, be careful. I on the other hand was dying to run out and catch up on everything I had missed 6 months before. As a result the plan of knee rehabilitation almost fell to pieces: the knee started killing me again, that's when I realised that rushing can cost me a fortune.
You are quite a famous man with loads of famous friends and connections, why do you wanna keep torturing your body? Kournikova, for example, plays exhibition tournaments, does commercials, lives a great life...
It only seems that such a popular guy like me will have no problem finding himself outside tennis. In reality it's practically impossible. Business? You have to spend tons of time on it every day, know the stuff. For a person like me who spent all of his life playing tennis it's impossible and simply selling my face and name and then lying around doing nothing is not interesting for me. I am used to living with a drive which tennis provides fully.
What's more difficult for you: getting back on track physically or psychologically?
Physically I am feeling very well right now, maybe my legs are a little too weak, but I have a strong head, which is the most important in sports.
On a number of occasions Peter Lundgren said that recently your character has changed to a great extent. How exactly?
Probably I started cherishing people that surround me more - family, friends. In autumn when I was curing the knee I used to watch other players on TV and realised: I am just an ordinary guy...plus limping (laughs). It will be very difficult in this life for a guy like me without the love and support of people close to me. And all this image and populatiry stuff it's just a glittery wrap of a beautiful box, which needs to have something grand inside that cannot be measured in money terms.
