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Post by yarina on Oct 15, 2007 23:37:24 GMT 3
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Post by maryb on Oct 16, 2007 0:22:18 GMT 3
Q: And your new coach, Hernán Gumy from Argentina? He comes up with no advice? MS: You see any career has certain stages – the beginning, the middle and the end. When you’re just starting you should practice more, work on some elements, improve some of them... When you’re 25 it’s hard to change anything. I’m already a mature player, and I need a coach who can understand this. He can force me to do one thing, but at the same time he should let some other things go their own way. Q: That’s what Gumy is like? MS: He’s very calm. The point for him is to be this calm while he’s on court and not to make a fuss. Otherwise, you know, I might blow my top off. Q: Blow your top off? Like doing what? MS: Well, I might break my racket, or just tell everyone to… Well, you know how our Russian people swear. I bet you’ve heard workers at a construction site? The Big Yin would tell me to 'f*** off'. I'd say, 'No, you f*** off ... but only after you've practiced a volley.' He'd say, 'No. You do it'. I'd say ' No. You f****** do it'... It would be fraught, but funny. The Big Russian v the Wee Scot. LMAO. He might be bigger than me ... but we're tough and take no prisoners. ;D What do you mean it's hard to change after 25? Bullshit. Only if you dig your heels in. It's not about changing, it's about 'developing'. Signed Fairy Godmother aka Cybercoach PS Get the angles with Karlovic. I'll record the match and watch it when I get home. I expect a win. No bullshit about 'don't expect much'. That's you handed over the first couple of games. Muppet. And don't tell me to f*** off again.  Another PS Wednesday ain't looking good for the Georgia match ... half our players are booked or injured.  |
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danni
Junior Member
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Post by danni on Oct 17, 2007 2:11:30 GMT 3
As I think of it, it doesn't matter if you are married or not to somebody to love them as long as you are with them and be together, marriage is just a paper I don't see why people ask so much about it and question his views about it as well.
Thanks for posting the itvw.[/quote]
You are quite right that marriage contract is only a piece of paper. But I don't agree with his quote :
I’m positive about it. But only after the children are born. After having been living with someone for 15 years you understand if you really love him or her.
Q: Not earlier? What happens before then?
MS: Love at the very beginning is an illness, a wild and feverous one. Then it transforms into respect, without which two people just can’t live together for long. Or either it does not transform, and to understand this you need time.[/color]
[/color][/color]
For me personally, I think that LOVE stems from RESPECT because how you even contemplating in loving someone if you don't respect them. I may be just a very old fashion girl, who is wanting the fairly tale white wedding before children. Children should also have a stable family unit, the world is a cruel world these days and that a child borne out of wedlock may encounter some discrimination, in my opinion anyway and no disrespect to others of couse!
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Post by Anne on Oct 17, 2007 16:48:38 GMT 3
Nice read from The Independant, enjoy!! LINK: sport.independent.co.uk/tennis/article3067175.eceKarlovic's peak proves beyond limited climbing skills of Safin By Paul Newman in Madrid Published: 17 October 2007 When you have been scaling Himalayan peaks, confronting a 6ft 10in man mountain might not seem too daunting a challenge. Ivo Karlovic, however, is in a rich vein of form and the tallest player on the men's tour needed less than an hour at the Madrid Masters here yesterday to dispose of Marat Safin, who returned recently from an expedition to climb the world's sixth highest mountain. Not even the thin air of Europe's highest capital – Madrid is 646 metres above sea level – could help the 27-year-old Russian as he lost 6-3, 6-4 under a barrage of aces from Karlovic, who claimed his third title of the year in Stockholm on Sunday. It continued an indifferent season for Safin, who reached the third round at the Australian Open and Wimbledon but has failed to win more than one match at any other Grand Slam or Masters series event in 2007. The former world No 1 has always been one of the tour's more unpredictable characters and when a wrist injury put him out of action after the US Open he took the opportunity to join some friends setting out to climb Cho-Oyu, an 8,201m mountain on the border between Nepal and Tibet. At the time he said he hoped the experience would "renew my resolve and my powers for tennis". Safin scaled a 4,100m peak as part of the acclimatisation process, but when the expedition moved to base camp to begin their assault on Cho-Oyu, which would have taken a month to climb, he decided to return home. It took him five days to climb back down the mountain and return to Moscow. "I was there for less than two weeks," Safin said. "It was a good time to decide to come back. The conditions are really tough for someone who is doing it for the first time. The second time it will be easier." He added: "I thought it was a good time to go. It was a great experience. Next time I decide to go I will be better prepared. Maybe next year." When asked what he had gained from the experience, Safin replied: "It's hard to explain with words. You have to be there to understand how it feels." He said he felt "rejuvenated as a person as well as a player" and quoted a Russian proverb: "It's better to see one time than to hear 100 times." Safin won the US Open in 2000 and went to the top the world rankings the following year, but his career has been punctuated by injuries and he has not won a tournament since beating Lleyton Hewitt in the Australian Open final in 2005. His best performance this year was a run to the semi-finals in Las Vegas in February. This was his second tournament back after returning from Kathmandu. He played in the Kremlin Cup in Moscow last week, beating Denis Matsukevitch, the world No 422, before losing to Igor Andreev in the second round. "My aim for this season is just to finish the year, that's it," he said after his latest defeat. "I don't know where I will play next as I need to ask for a wild card. I just want to finish the year and start slowly preparing for 2008." Karlovic, who now meets another Russian in Nikolay Davydenko, is one year older than Safin, but his career is heading in the opposite direction. This was the Croat's ninth win in his last 10 matches and he has climbed to a career-high No 24 in the world rankings. Roger Federer is the only other player who has won on three different surfaces this year. Yesterday's tally of 17 aces took Karlovic's total for the year to 1,152. Only one player has ever hit more in a single season, Karlovic's fellow countryman Goran Ivanisevic having done so in 1996 and 1994, with 1,477 and 1,169 respectively. No wonder Britain were grateful that Karlovic did not play in last month's Davis Cup tie at Wimbledon because of a dispute with the Croatian federation. |
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Post by davis on Oct 18, 2007 9:42:23 GMT 3
Time for Marat to head for the hills
by James Martin
Dear Marat:
What’s up? Hope all is well. You must be in a good mood today after Russia¹s upset win over England in the UEFA game, huh? Big surprise, but then it¹s never easy for a visiting team to win in Moscow.
I saw you on TV this week, at the Madrid Masters. Looking good. You’ll be rocking the ’fro in no time.
After yet another early loss in Madrid this week, is it time for Marat Safin to think about packing his bags for good?
But listen, I’m writing on a more serious note. Let me be blunt: You’re a mess, man. You haven’t won more than two matches in a row since mid-July, and your best result this season was in February when you reached the semifinals of Las Vegas. Fitting, since you’ve been coming up craps ever since.
It’s the same story with you: another week, another miserable loss. In Madrid you, big guy, lost to an even bigger guy, Ivo Karlovic 6-3, 6-4, in 59 minutes. What, were you double-parked?
I could cut you some slack, since the 6-foot-10 Karlovic is a nightmare to play on an indoor court, but you obviously didn’t go into the match with much hope. What was it that you said? Oh, right, “I [didn’t] expect anything from this one. Just finish the year and that’s it.”
Ah, the power of positive thinking.
You’re killing me, Marat. Lately, you’ve been as committed to tennis as Hugh Hefner is to monogamy. And when you do play, it’s been painful to watch. Please, explain your flameouts this season to Feliciano Lopez, Kristof Vliegen, Janko Tipsarevic, Hyung-Taik Lee, and Nicolas Kiefer. Journeymen, each and every one of them, and you barely put up a fight. Which is more than I can say for your performance against Nicolas Mahut in Indian Wells, Calif., where you posted a bagel in the third set. That’s actually quite impressive. On some level, it’s harder to find a way to lose a set at love than it is to scratch out a game or two, especially with your firepower.
It’s all leading me to believe that you should quit tennis. I don’t mean temporarily hang up your racquet so you can go on a farcical journey in the Himalayans to regroup, reenergize, and refocus—clearly, you’re incapable of that. You should pack up and never return.
Marat, this isn’t an easy thing to say for me. Ever since you crashed the scene in 2000, blowing Pete Sampras off the court in the U.S. Open final—a victory that was at once brutal and artistic—I’ve been a big fan. No one hits a cleaner, heavier ball than you, and it’s been refreshing to have a top player with a fiery, melodramatic personality. You’ve got soul, unlike your compatriots Nikolay Davydenko and, before him, Yevgeny Kafelnikov, who treat the game with a stone-cold business-like efficiency.
But your “why-me” theatrics have grown tired. Boris Becker played the role of Hamlet, too, pitching his head to the sky after a mistake as if some otherworldly power was torturing him for kicks. The difference was that Becker was a winner throughout his career.
What's with the ’tude, dude? You’re like a teenager who’s way too self-absorbed for his own good. When you were recently asked about the gambling investigation in men’s tennis, which strikes at the very core of the sport’s integrity and deserves an informed response from all of the top players, your response was weaker than an Elena Dementieva second serve. “To be honest,” you said, “I don’t really care. Whatever people do and whatever they want to do, I don’t care. If the world collapses, I don’t really care. I have enough problems myself. I can’t worry about other people’s problems.”
Never mind that this is the kind of thinking that gets us all into trouble in every facet of life – like, say, a war in Iraq – it shows a lack of respect for the sport that made you a millionaire in the first place. Even John McEnroe, Mr. Ego himself, cares (or at least pretends to care) about tennis.
Look, Marat, I know you’re hard on yourself—self-criticism is in your blood, ingrained over many formative childhood years by your mother and the severe Soviet system. Positive reinforcement? It didn’t exist in your universe. You’ve even said, “I didn’t care to play tennis, didn’t really like it.”
And I know you’ve always struggled with the high expectations that came from beating Sampras. You should be No. 1 if only you apply yourself, or so goes the conventional wisdom. It seems to me that you’ve chosen to diffuse this talk by playing so horrendously that no one can even entertain the thought of you challenging for majors anymore.
That’s a sad commentary on your career. Didn’t you get any perspective when you ditched your Davis Cup mates in September to trek up Nepal’s Cho Oyu mountain, only to quit at the base camp. I can only imagine how miserable you were, and how miserable you made your fellow hikers on that journey, when you discovered that climbing a mountain is, like, real work.
Tennis is hard work, too. You can’t keep playing meathead tennis, rallying without many changes in pace and placement, and expect to win. You’re good, but not that good.
I came across a quote yesterday from Paul Annacone that was apropos of your career. “My old boss said to me once,” Annacone says, “the definition of how good you are is in three areas: your head, your heart, and your talent level.”
What’s the average of a D, F, and A? We’re talking only slightly better than Marcelo Rios here.
Don’t laugh. He won 18 career titles; you’re at 15. Granted, you’ve got 2 majors, while Rios never won a Slam. But you both share that absurd, petulant attitude, which undermines everything you do on court.
Hey, man, it’s your career. But you’re 27, and if you can get healthy you might want to dig in for a year or two before your body, or mind, or both, totally conk out. No regrets, right? Otherwise, spare your fans the heartache and join Yevgeny at the poker table.
Later,
James
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Post by ornthree on Oct 18, 2007 20:32:53 GMT 3
kind of harsh here....
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Post by annie on Oct 19, 2007 16:52:39 GMT 3
Ouch.
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Post by Dina on Oct 19, 2007 17:05:07 GMT 3
I just read that one: no comments! except that this james guy doesn't have any right of judging(none of us can really understand people's pain if we don't try it before!)
here I've found some pretty confusing article of today:
Tarpishchev wants Marat Safin to play in 2007 Davis Cup final
MOSCOW, October 19 (RIA Novosti) - The president of the Russian Tennis Association said Friday he hopes Marat Safin will play for the national team in the 2007 Davis Cup final in the United States next month.
The official Web site of the Russian tennis star, who won the 2007 Kremlin Cup doubles title, said that Safin had "ended his season and would not play any more tournaments this year."
Shamil Tarpishchev, who is also the captain of the Russian national tennis team, called on fans and media not to speculate on the issue, saying: "I do not care what they say. There is no need to make a sensation out of it."
Tarpishchev said that he had already made the team selection and, "We are all leaving for the United States together on November 23 and until then I do not want to hear anything about it."
Safin's Web site said the Russian had made the decision because he believes the team has four players who are all better than him.
The defending champions from Russia will play in the final of the prestigious tennis tournament running November 30 - December 2 against the United States team in Portland, Oregon.
The Russians won their trip to the final after a tough match against the German team in late September in Moscow. After the first two days of play, Tarpishchev's team trailed 1-2 to the Germans, eventually triumphing 3-2.
According to a poll conducted by the official Davis Cup Web site, the U.S. is the favorite to win the final, with 63% of some 13,000 respondents voting for the American squad.
The 2006 Davis Cup title was Russia's second in five years, but it was its first on home soil. In 2002, the Russian team shocked French fans in Paris by winning the competition, coming back from 2-1 down after the first two days of play.
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Post by maryb on Oct 21, 2007 12:36:16 GMT 3
As we would say in Scotland, 'James Martin. Who's he?'
Arse. I'd be keen to hear about his achievements in life.
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Post by justsafin on Oct 21, 2007 21:24:34 GMT 3
www.tennis-x.com/xblog/2007-10-19/307.phpignore that martin article, here's another one "grendel says: Safin a spoiled brat? That’s just risible. He’s one of the very few players who is absolutely open and honest. You know when you read his interviews that he is speaking the truth - there is absolutely no looking over his shoulder to whoever might be listening. He seeks to impress nobody, and care nothing for the opinions of others. He is candid about his own shortcomings, and funny about them too. Eurosport filmed him shortly before his magnificent comeback, after a long spell away due to injury, in Australia (he beat Roddick and Agassi and ran out of gas against Fed in the final). He was being questioned about his training and general conditioning, and admitted he found it tough. “Nobody likes work,” he said disarmingly. Rings kind of true, doesn’t it, for most of us. Asked recently about Davydenko and the betting imbroglio, he said he knew nothing about it and cared less. He had his own problems and had enough trouble dealing with them. None of the prurient glee of the fulminating moralist, no pompous sermonising - and above all, no pleasure in gossip. This is a man without humbug. Of course, he is a serious underachiever - how could he not be, as the only talent comparable to Federer’s over the last twenty years. Of course it is a puzzle, although big men like him are prone to injury and perhaps not a lot could have been done about that. Still, there is something else. I have always seen Safin as a sort of Russian Hamlet - a man gifted with a simple love of life and yet also tortured by indecision. There seems to be huge self-doubt in his makeup. Macenroe’s old doubles partener Peter Fleming put his finger on it, I suspect, when he says that some players who are happy at the #15 mark become thoroughly alarmed if they get to, say, #5. And so on. Safin had all the attributes of a great # 1, except self-belief. At some unconscious level, he wanted nothing to do with those rareified heights. Felt uncomfortable there, as if he didn’t belong. Thus Fleming, and I buy his theory. People like Nadal and Djokovic are natural, fierce competitors with no fear of being #1. Too early to say, but I suspect Murray belongs there too. But Gasquet who, like Safin, has more talent than any of them, will never get there. He’s the French Hamlet. Malisse, too. Then you have players like Nalbandian and Lopez, certainly players with the raw ability to be in the top 5 or 6. Something stops them, not agonising in their case, hard to say what. But Safin, Safin. When he was singing, he was a force of nature, glorious to behold. His tenure was brief - but whilst it lasted, there was nothing like it. Who can be so foolish, so blind as to mock him?" thank you grendel, who ever you may be 
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Post by Anne on Oct 21, 2007 23:36:26 GMT 3
Thanks everyone for all the articles  ! I was away for 4 days.. was really nice, until I came home. I was looking forward to see another match with Marat next week.. But I see I can't. Really.. understanding actually, I mean Marat's discision. The press had finally something to write about. Pathatic really. I also read the 'arguments' on the OS-forum.. Gee, what a mess over there. We really got all the positve thinkers/fans on TGFR ;D ! What abotu DC now.. I read that article from Dina.. what to say? I mean, the OS said he won't play, because he thinks he's not good enough, but Tarpi thinks differently! I don't know it anymore.. ! But I still believe in you Marat! That's the most important thing ;D! kisses |
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Post by safinou on Oct 22, 2007 2:09:15 GMT 3
Go to hell James Martin!! Your "article" is such a piece of shit!! However, it feels good to see a reaction from www.maratsafin.com on that matter... May Marat be back in 2008 stronger than ever !!! |
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Post by yarina on Oct 25, 2007 1:14:25 GMT 3
A new article on Marat (and Nalbandian) from tennis.com: tennisworld.typepad.com/tennisworld/2007/10/slacker-agonist.htmlclick on the link if you wanna see the comments as well (plenty of them!), other wise, here's the article: "Ahoy, friends. Asad Raza here. I'm back with some thoughts on last week in tennis - more specifically, on tennis' beloved, infuriating slackers, David Nalbandian and Marat Safin. The two players' fortunes diverged wildly over the last few days, with Nalbandian as we all know pulling off the rare 1-2-3 by defeating Nadal, Djokovic and Federer to win his first Master's Series shield in Madrid. (Just that fact alone, that it was his first MS victory, is a shock - even when they win these guys remind you how much more they should win.) Safin, meanwhile, declared his season over after a first-round loss to a bigger lug, Lil' Ivo Karlovic, in the selfsame Madrid event. This means he will miss the Davis Cup final - more on that below. Mentioning Safin's potential always gets people mentioning that 2000 U.S. Open final as proof of his abilities, which, to be honest, I think is pretty silly. It was only one match. Still it gives rise to the following tempting and glorious thought: what if there was a player so big, so strong, and so good that he could whip anyone in straight sets, make any player, even Pete Sampras, look overmatched? And wouldn't it be something if that player had a tragic temperamental flaw that prevented him from dominating? The reason it's an attractive myth is that it partakes of what was known to the Romantic poets as the sublime: i.e. the sense that there are mountains that dwarf the Himalayas, giants walking the earth, players with abilities far beyond the level of the tennis we see. Safin has a poetic way of fitting into this line of thinking: he's a big boy, he has heroic good looks, and he's capable of breathtakingly hard hitting. (I saw him hit a ball out of the Grandstand in anger two months ago; it's hard to describe--I have never seen a ball struck like that.) But the idea that he should be capable of destroying the field is simply wrong. It's true that he can play scintillating baseline tennis, when matched against a player who stubbornly lets him stay in rhythm. You see this with top players: Agassi in Melbourne in 2004, Federer in 2005. They won't demean themselves by giving him no pace, mixing things up, and they fall victim to the devastating metronome of Safin's crosscourt groundstrokes. But it's also true that humble bamboozlers like Fabrice (The Great) Santoro or Oli Rochus, can bamboozle Marat by taking pace off the ball and playing patiently. The strategy works because it exploits his single greatest problem: his tendency to "go away" during matches. This is a weakness as real and as consequential as Elena Dementieva's serve. Sure, the Captain's many admirers love to fantastize about taming him and helping him settle down, but the point is that Federer or Nadal fans need entertain no such fantasies. Those guys already have the capacity for long periods of focus, extreme workout routines, and sustained concentration. Marat, meanwhile, has always suffered inconceivable losses and sudden breakdowns of form. And since coming back from a bad knee injury in 2005, his mobility and especially his agility have suffered, giving him less margin for error and exacerbating his problems. I think it's pretty obvious Safin is having a crisis of confidence right now, and probably considering retirement. His abortive mountain-climbing mission was a sign that he's looking for ways to contemplate what he should be doing with himself. His announcement that will not play in the Davis Cup final, however, is much more serious--he's not even leaving the decision about his level of play up to his brilliant coach, Shamil Tarpischev. It's quite sad, coming from Safin, a player who has been a stalwart for his country. Marat Safin seems not only to represent his country but to personify it, to symbolize contemporary Russia in some prodigious way. (An aside here: for a hilariously sharp take on Russia, America, and the farce that is current geopolitics, please read Gary Shteyngart's satirical novel, Absurdistan.) Like Safin, Nalbandian is a Davis Cup symbol for his country, and plays his best tennis in that setting. Outside of Davis Cup, Nalbandian has this signal characteristic: just when we think his days as a guy who can beat Roger Federer are over for good, he comes back and does it again. He's like the comeback specialist who specializes not in rising through the rankings, or winning Slams out of nowhere, but coming out of nowhere to beat Fed. A pretty cool ability to have, but Nalbandian has little in the way of prizes: just six career titles, to be exact. He also has a slew of big-match collapses, such as giving up two-set leads against Baghdatis in Australia and Roddick in Flushing Meadows. Madrid was the first final he reached in 2007, while in 2006 he won Estoril but failed to reach another final. Nalbandian did his reputation for underachievement no favors by losing quickly at Wimbledon in 2006 after requesting, and not getting, a time change so he could watch Argentina play in the World Cup. But there may be a meaning in that story hasn't been remarked on. First off, it's obvious that Nalbandian cares pretty strongly about his nation--and we Americans must try to understand the importance of the World Cup for the traditional footballing nations. There is a deep-rooted pride involved, one that that combines the civic love that, say, Bill Simmons has for the Boston Red Sox with all the patriotism that attaches to a shared culture and language. Trust me for a minute here. I am not trying to excuse Daveed for the Wimbledon debacle. But if you put that together with his Davis Cup heroics, I think you have something: both point to a man who finds it easier, and more natural, to motivate himself by attaching his sympathies to something beyond his own self-interest. A nation, a team, and especially a national team, can electrify certain people who have trouble staying engaged when only playing for themselves. Remember how John McEnroe, the greatest Davis Cup player in U.S. tennis history, used to complain about the solipsism of singles tennis and point out the collaborative joy he felt in team play? Nalbandian and Safin play well for their countries, and oscillate wildly in individual competition. The downside of this is that to see such talented players struggle with motivation can leach some of the joy out of watching tennis. It makes you wonder, do they even care about tennis? And the answer may well be: not as much, and not in as single minded a way, as Mr. Federer. But I think they both deserve some sympathy too: I'm not sure Marat actually has the physical ability to challenge the best anymore, and Nalbandian is hardly the only guy who goes all Haas-like under pressure. Safin and Nalbandian bring gorgeous, fluid ability to the game--that's a pair of the most beautiful two-handers you'll ever see. Both struggle with consistency (hey! I can identify!), which makes watching them an unpredictable drama, but they typically find a way to get it together when playing for something bigger than themselves. To me, that's worth appreciation. A final note: their head-to-head is 6-3 in favor of Safin, the more accomplished player, but Nalbandian won the last two meetings, in the Madrid 2006 QF and then last year in the Davis Cup final in Russia, where Argentina's standard bearer took out Russia's, 4, 4, and 4." -Asad Raza |
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Post by maryb on Oct 25, 2007 11:45:40 GMT 3
As per Martin, Asad who? Big Yin, 2008 - shut the twats up and show them what you can do. PS What's Russian for 'twat', Annie? |
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Post by Annie on Oct 25, 2007 12:20:44 GMT 3
I'd say kozYOL mary ;D
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