Saturday, October 14, 2006
Hi to everybody, it’s my sixth day from heaven.
The tournament is coming to an end, tomorrow is the final and we have to leave to the beautiful country of Spain to play a tournament in Madrid, which is a tournament of my managers. They are really doing a good job, trying to make it as good as possible for the players.
They have even made a casting for the models, the ball kids. Instead of kids, they will have real models from all over the world. It actually takes them a little longer to learn how to throw the balls and bring water, towels, because as you know they are good-looking women and are not used to doing this kind of thing.
It is difficult to teach them and make them believe it is a good thing and get paid for it. It is quite impressive. By the end of the week they are smiling to us, which is also pretty impressive. By the end of the week, if you are doing well it also means you are good looking and it is coming naturally.
Some of the guys they even try to get their phone numbers even on court. That is why a lot of good guys are losing in the first round and some of the people don’t care, they just want to play on Center Court just to meet the girls and impress them with their beautiful shots.
That is next week, but this week is coming to an end. Yesterday, I left the courts around 12:30am and I had to find some food to eat and then to go to sleep. We went to an American and Greek bar and we had some Jalapenos, some shrimp, and a couple portions of chicken wings.
The place was full. I was pretty hungry so I bite my tongue badly and I was bleeding to death. But I was lucky that everybody took care of me and I didn’t need surgery. I survived and I managed to come on court today and played impressively. I won 6-4, 6-3 against my countryman and my neighbor from Moscow, Igor Kunitsyn.
The day started pretty well, with a little bit of sunshine but then of course it slowly started to rain. We are facing winter pretty soon and there is less daylight. For example a few weeks ago there was still sunshine around 7pm and I was getting back around 9-10 o’clock. But now at 7pm it is completely dark.
No matter for us, as we are playing indoors because I am basically spending all of the day under lights at the Olympic Stadium built for the Olympic Games of 1980 in case nobody knows.
Actually, I have to say I was impressed in Washington that I found a guy, as I was walking out of a restaurant, who shouted at me in a Russian accent “Marat”. I turned around and could not see a Russian face, I only saw a black guy. I was sure it was not him who shouted at me. Then he said: “Hey, what’s up” in Russian. He said it with such as Russian accent that I was shocked. Maybe I was hallucinating, as it was pretty hot. Then I asked him “how come that you a guy from Washington, with colored skin, speak such good Russian.” He said: “No, I’m from Russia.” Of course I was shocked even more. We call these people ‘kids of the Olympic Games’. I asked him about his age, and of course I already knew the answer. He was born in 1981. So I hope when he reads the blog he doesn’t get really upset and finds it pretty funny story. I think it is pretty amazing that the world is so small, in every corner you can find someone close to you and you don’t even know it. Maybe we know some penguins in the South Pole.
Enough of the bull----. The day was long, the ladies took over on court and they took forever to decide who wanted to win and lose. Apparently, nobody wanted to lose. So I was waiting, eating and drinking coffee. I went to sleep and almost fell from the massage table a couple of times because when you sleep your body sometimes shakes – so I almost fell down. I slept and then drank another couple of coffees. I ate again and drank again. Basically, my stomach was like an aquarium. A mixture of pasta, soup, Russian blinis, jam, coffee, tea, peach juice so you can imagine how I was going to look after a few hours.
They then called us. Everyone is happy two Russian girls and two guys are in the final. It was a full stadium today, pretty amazing as the stadium is pretty big. We are only using one quarter of it for the Center Court. More or less, today was around 10,000 people. It was not 100% full. A lot of my friends came and it was funny as half were supporting Igor and the others were supporting me. It was funny to hear what people were shouting as they think they understand tennis. Pretty good advisors I heard. I’m really thankful to all my fans, they have been great to me.
It is my first final in Moscow, so I am happy. A final nobody can complain about. No one will make me feel guilty of going away to sleep and not doing my job properly. I play tomorrow I face Nikolay Davydenko, a pretty interesting match, a local derby. So I guess he doesn’t want to lose to me. I don’t want to lose to him. He is actually Ukrainian, originally from Ukraine so it will be interesting match.
After today’s match, I did press and signed around 5,000 million autographs so I could perfect my signature. A lot of kids coming, running up with balls. At least kids here they know who I am. For example at some of the tournaments like in Cincinnati or Montreal, they come up and don’t even know who you are. They then ask, “Excuse me. Who are you?” I always use the name Roger Federer. For sure they know Roger. Then they ask, “Yeah, sure, who are you?” So I am still using his name.
I did my press and massage, then I will go to have a quick dinner and head home. Because tomorrow is my first final for 10 years and hopefully it will be positive even though I am pretty happy in losing or winning. Of course winning will be much better, I will try to kick his ass in a good way. Nothing personal. I don’t want to lose it and lose the opportunity to win the title in my hometown at least once; as I do not know when it will happen again.
That’s pretty much it today. It is difficult to collect all the information and explain it all to you. Nicola will be tired of typing it up for the Internet. I will leave you wondering what I will be doing tonight. Like you care? I hope you don’t.
I will talk to you tomorrow. Have a good night. Enjoy the Saturday night. I am jealous of all of you. Not of course the people in Australia as they will have a hangover already from the night before. People from Moscow, Paris, London. Then I will be jealous of people in New York and then of people in Miami. To all the party animals, all my best wishes. Take your drinks in proportion. Don’t lose you brain, which is stupid to wish this as I think people drink to lose their brains. Be careful of the drugs as they can be dangerous. Hopefully everyone will be with someone. Or if not, they will not feel lonely for one reason or other. For those with girlfriends and boyfriends have a simple evening, watching the television and arguments over who is going to wash the dishes. Enjoy it.
Thanks for reading my blogs throughout the week. Hopefully I did not hurt anybodies feelings. Take good care.
Marat
P.S. Please visit my web site MaratSafin.com
... lol
