Post by Annie on May 31, 2006 16:13:03 GMT 3
SEARCHING FOR SAFIN
My mission if I choose to accept it, (and I did) was to go to Roland Garros on May 30th and find Marat Safin. I would do it for my self, for France as represented by Roland Garros, for Russia as represented by Marat and most especially for all my peoples at TGFR and my Mulan Ladies in particular.
I was convinced that I would succeed in this mission and all omens were good ones. Walking from the bus stop towards the entry of the grounds, I spotted Walt Landers jogging. Aha I thought, Marat’s ex fitness trainer. Omen number 1.
Omen number 2 arrived almost as soon as I got into the ground. There were several players warming up on the various annex courts before the 11 am start time of the day’s matches. The first player that I saw and recognized was none other than Daniela Hantuchova. My immediate thoughts were something along the lines of…Daniela if you only knew what Sabz and Nat put you through…
After buying a Roland Garros hat and key chain and the day’s program ( I would have bought gloves if they had them as it was bloody freezing) I called both my tennis colleagues at Eurosport to hit them up for an inside track and of course they were totally useless.
Never mind that, I wandered the different annex courts, saw that Daniela had migrated from one side of Court Suzanne Lenglen to the other but no sign of Marat. Going back the way I came however there was a bit of a breakthrough.
ONE LETTER MAKES ALL THE DIFFERENCE
On Court # 8 was not Safin, but Safina. Dinara and her double’s partner Roberta Vinci were hitting a few balls under the watchful eye of their coaches. I got there towards the end of the session. I took a few pictures and watched as Dina left the court and was surrounded by autograph seekers and picture takers. Then as she was going down the tunnel into the player’s locker rooms (or at least I assume that is where it led to.) one guy held up his hand for a high five. Dinara complied and then disappeared tossing a final “Gracias” over her shoulder.
At that stage it was about 10:45 so I decided to go into the second main court, the Lenglen where Anastasia Myskina was playing against Sania Mirza. I would watch that match then head back to Court # 9 to watch Dinara and Roberta play their doubles match against a French pair of Harding and Brunel.
Anastasia, played pretty well. After going a break down she got it back straight away and never really looked back. There were some cutesy shots and both players had quite a few winners. For anyone that’s never seen Sania Mirza play, she’s basically the sort of player that takes a lot of risks, accelerates when ever she can and doesn’t mind going for the line 9/10.
Clay isn’t really her thing though and Anastasia was never really bothered. She won the first set 6/4 and the second set was a formality really 6/1. Still it’s always nice to see her doing well. I quite like Anastasia and I know she’s had a tough time of it in the recent past.
After that match I abandoned that court and went to watch Dinara’s doubles match. I’ve never really watched a whole lot of doubles but it was good fun. The cool thing about the annexes is that you’re practically on top of the court. I was standing right behind Dina and Roberta’s chair. I could hear them talking to each other like two feet in front of me.
It seems that they speak Spanish to each other. Or at least Dinara speaks Spanish to Roberta, Roberta may or may not have replied in the same language. She may have replied in Italian for all I know. I recently discovered that Spanish and Italian are actually quite understandable to each other. Continuing on the language theme a bit. Dinara’s Spanish accent is very Spanish and not Latin American Spanish at all. Marat has it as well obviously, but not as heavy. Dina was showing off her language skills today cause the first thing she did was ask for more towels in English (the poor French ball girl had a time figuring out what she was after nevertheless) and then at the end of the match, some Russian guy said something to her in, you guessed it Russian, and she replied in kind.
As for the match itself. I was pretty impressed. Dinara and Roberta dominated completely. Dina is the stronger one from the back of the court and Roberta more the natural volleyer. Still Dinara did pretty well at the net and the few mistakes made by her or Roberta did not really matter, they still won 6/1 6/1.
JACKPOT
Leaving Dinara’s match is when I struck pay dirt. As I said one letter makes all the difference. Take the a off of Safina and it leaves you with Safin which is exactly what happened. Leaving Court 9# I heard a woman say, I just saw Marat, he’s on court 13.
Now close your eyes and imagine the fastest thing you can think of and you have an idea of my hurry to make it to court 13. I ran, I fell, ignored the fall, got up and kept running. Over the top of one wall, I glimpsed the Sun Bun and commenced sending subliminal messages to Marat along the lines of “Don’t’ you dare move until I get there.”
I got to a spot on the fence. A guy behind me pointed to Marat and said, “Do you know who that is?” As in he was asking me, as in he did not know! I looked at him incredulously. “It’s Marat Safin. You know 2 meter tall Russian, won a couple of Grand Slams, was number one for a while?” The guy shrugged.
Still somewhat bemused I focused my attention on Marat. He was hitting with some unidentified Spanish looking player. Hitting well, cleanly. He looked focused. Peter was in the background, wandering around. I saw him and sort of heard him speaking to a tournament official. His accent is very Scandinavian but he has a deep voice.
Then lo and behold Lleyton Hewitt and Andy Roddick arrived. Cleary they had booked time on the court after Marat. Marat basically ignored Andy or at least that’s what it looked like. There didn’t appear to be any sign of acknowledgment between the two although Andy did say a few words to Peter.
Then Marat went to get his stuff, he signed a couple autographs alongside the court and headed off. I ran off to the other side, where the door to the court was. There was whole other crowd there waiting to mob Marat for more autographs and pictures. There was a lot of jostling going on and one lady ruined one of my attempts to take a picture by putting her huge afro between me and Marat’s face. I eventually did get a clear picture of his profile.
If I were a ruder sort, I’d of pushed and shoved with the best of them and gotten closer to him. As it was he was hardly three feet away from me. He said something to some one in English about not having any more pens and then said something else in Spanish. After that he disappeared down some stairs and inside a building barred to the public.
As you can guess, that was pretty much the highlight of my day. It took me a while to start breathing again. I then went to Place des Mousquataires where the big screen is to see what Monfils and Murray were up to on center court. I watched that for about an hour or so and then I headed off on the second part of my mission.
Monfils and Murry had a marathon going which was to my advantage. It turns out that starting a five o clock in the afternoon its possible to get tickets for the main court. In theory I should have been able to exchange my Lenglen ticket for a place on Center court.
Apparently that is not exactly how it works. What you have to have is just a regular annex ticket, (one that gives access to all the courts except the two main ones) and 1,3, or 7 euros.
Now anyone who knows me knows, that I don’t like Paul Henri Mathieu. It’s nothing personal really or rather it is. I just don’t like him. There is no real reason. Just a visceral reaction. That’s how it is sometimes. As it happens though, Mathieu in a roundabout kind of way is the reason I got a ticket for Center Court.
I was first in line and there was a girl behind me that really wanted to go on Langlen to see Mathieu and who didn’t mind seeing Roddick as well. I gave her my ticket, she gave me hers which I promptly exchanged for one for Center court and off I was to watch Marat’s match.
When I got to center court though., Justine Henin- Hardenne was wrapping things up. Sort of. She won the first set and was just starting the second set. Lucky for me, Justine didn’t feel like wasting time, she wrapped things up fairly quickly and it was time for Mulan Man to make his entrance.
THE MATCH AND MY THOUGHTS
ACT ONE
In the first set, Marat did not really play badly. He had his chances to break Gonzales but he did not take enough of them. At the same time though there were some great shots and some fantastic tennis from him. The basic theme of the first set and the match really is that Marat made mistakes at the wrong time, most of which stem from the now infamous lack of confidence.
He had the initiative in a lot of the points. He went to the net, and volleyed pretty well. Gonzalez made him play a lot of smash volleys and Marat didn’t miss a single one. The first set, for me was about missed chances.
BREATHTAKING
The second set was Marat playing great tennis. He hit the ball cleanly, went for his shots and basically blew Gonzalez off the court. The main difference with the second and first set is that Marat took his chances. He put the set out of Gonzalez’s reach early on.
PAY CASH
The third set was basically lost as far as Marat was concerned with one bad service game. He played one game badly on his serve and then did not really get a look in on the returns. Gonzales served well as key moments. There was one moment where he aced Marat twice in a row and that really pissed Marat off.
Marat held his serve pretty easily for the rest of the set but he couldn’t get the break back and lost the set. That seemed to deflate him somewhat. It was dark, cold, windy and physically I am not sure if Marat had five sets in him today or in any case the thought of it seemed to tire him out.
UNLUCKY
The fourth set was just really unlucky for Marat to be honest. He was probably a bit “hung-over” from losing the third and he lost his serve straight away. Things spiraled out of control quickly as far as the scoreline but not in terms of the play.
The games were really tight. Lots of deuces and advantages and Marat had his chances. Having said that, he also fought really hard. Gonzalez put him under a lot of pressure and he resisted as best he could. I lost track of the number of break points he saved, often playing really good tennis to do so.
I think we’ve talked about Marat not having confidence to play well the important points in recent times. Today he played them pretty well. Bad luck for him Gonzales played them a little bit better and that minute difference comes from confidence.
Not to mention that Gonzales got damn lucky. There were a lot of line calls that were at the extreme limit and on the point for him to go 5-0 up the ball bounced off the lining of the net and out. Marat’s problem throughout the whole thing was finishing points.
ON TO BIGGER AND BETTER THINGS
Marat was clearly disappointed after the match but at the same time, during the match I didn’t get the feeling that he was putting himself under pressure. Having said that with Marat it’s hard to tell where the line is between not putting pressure on himself and not expecting enough from himself.
What I will say, is that contrary to his last match in Hamburg, Marat played with conviction in his shots, even when he was way down. Even at 5-0 down with Gonzalez serving for the match, Marat played all of his shots with the intention of hurting his adversary and it worked cause he broke. Unfortunately he couldn’t hold serve after.
It has to be said that at that stage the conditions really weren’t great. It was getting dark, it was 13 degrees, it was windy. To be fair, Marat did not really serve as well as he is able over the duration of the match. There were some impressive aces (214km/hr on the T and 209km/hr exterior) but his first serve let him down on several occasions. He committed three double faults and they were all are towards the end of the match, two of them in the same game. Part of that probably due to just tiredness.
And having said all of that, Marat did not play a bad match at all. There were great shots from him throughout the whole match and spells of really good tennis. The second set was really good obviously but there were games in the other sets that he played particularly well.
When Russia played France, I remember saying that it was essential for Marat to win his match for his confidence. He did, he played great against Gasquet and it seemed like that was it, he was back. I don’t know if it was the bout of flu or the ankle injury that interrupted the dynamic or if it was a natural let down of circumstances but I now wonder if that Davis Cup win, didn’t have the opposite effect that it was supposed to.
In a way I think it’s like being bi polar (not that I am accusing Marat of having any kind of personality disorder J) in that when he came back he was playing so well, beating top players it was almost like being manic, which means hyper, a like unreasonably happy and active for those of you who don’t know.
And when you’re in that place you feel like nothing can touch you ( I don’t know about y’all but I don’t remember ever seeing Marat as relaxed and serene as he was during that Davis Cup tie) but when you come back down to normal you feel like you’ve hit rock bottom which is not the case at all. I repeat, Marat is not playing that badly, from a purely tennis point of view.
In a way I think the early run of results when he came back was something of an illusion. Coming back after seven months of injury, getting your match fitness perfect and regaining real confidence, that unshakeable belief in what you do on court, takes time, a lot of time. Getting to his top form, is not gonna happen from one match to the next.
He’s not gonna pull off a surprise win and then see a light bulb turn on over his head. It’s going to be a lot of little details that slowly build up. As I said there were great shots today, good tennis at times and a will to give everything on court.
Physically I think he’s a ways away from really being able to play five tough sets, especially on clay which is normal. I don’t know how long it is gonna take for these tiny details to line up. It could be weeks, months or even a year from now but I didn’t leave the stadium with the same feeling of hurt and helplessness that I felt after the Hamburg match.
As far as I am concerned the positive signs are there if you are willing to look for them and believe in them enough. I do. I believe in Marat and I can’t ask him to be patient with himself if I’m not willing to have the same patience. We’ll see what happens at Wimbledon but I think that what Marat needs to be focusing on is the second half of the season. Hard court and indoor tournaments where he has no points to defend, could help getting the confidence sorted and then the end of season will give him time to get his fitness back to it’s peak.
RANDOM DETAILS
There was a Russian guy (no not, Marat, a different Russian guy) somewhere in the crowd who kept talking to Marat in between points in Russian. I have no clue what he was saying but it was pretty steady commentary or at least up until the third set.
There was one point where after Marat won it, he turned to face the stands where I was sitting and we both did the same little fist pump at the same time. I don’t know if I explained that well, but it looked almost simultaneous, like he and I had the same reaction at the same time to the same thing.
That was the interesting part. I’d never seen Marat play in person, but at the same time there was a kind of déjà vu about it. Marat is so familiar to me even though I don’t know him, if that makes sense. So watching him this time didn’t really feel different except for one thing.
Without the TV cameras doing close ups on one player and then the other and the running commentary, I was free to focus exclusively on Marat. And of course there was the racket throwing (he didn’t actually break it) and the heated discussions with the ref (Carlos Ramos) and a scream or two.
Oh and I spared a thought for the Mulan Ladies when he lifted his shirt and showed me some skin. Hehehe . It lasted long enough for me to appreciate but not long enough to take a picture. And besides I think there will probably be better pictures of the match itself on the Internet taken courtside by the pros.
So there you have it. My first day at Roland Garros. I’d have loved to see Marat win but I won’t hold against him (as if I could stay mad at Marat…. ). I’ll just look forward to the next time I see him. NY in the summer? Paris- Bercy in the fall?
My mission if I choose to accept it, (and I did) was to go to Roland Garros on May 30th and find Marat Safin. I would do it for my self, for France as represented by Roland Garros, for Russia as represented by Marat and most especially for all my peoples at TGFR and my Mulan Ladies in particular.
I was convinced that I would succeed in this mission and all omens were good ones. Walking from the bus stop towards the entry of the grounds, I spotted Walt Landers jogging. Aha I thought, Marat’s ex fitness trainer. Omen number 1.
Omen number 2 arrived almost as soon as I got into the ground. There were several players warming up on the various annex courts before the 11 am start time of the day’s matches. The first player that I saw and recognized was none other than Daniela Hantuchova. My immediate thoughts were something along the lines of…Daniela if you only knew what Sabz and Nat put you through…
After buying a Roland Garros hat and key chain and the day’s program ( I would have bought gloves if they had them as it was bloody freezing) I called both my tennis colleagues at Eurosport to hit them up for an inside track and of course they were totally useless.
Never mind that, I wandered the different annex courts, saw that Daniela had migrated from one side of Court Suzanne Lenglen to the other but no sign of Marat. Going back the way I came however there was a bit of a breakthrough.
ONE LETTER MAKES ALL THE DIFFERENCE
On Court # 8 was not Safin, but Safina. Dinara and her double’s partner Roberta Vinci were hitting a few balls under the watchful eye of their coaches. I got there towards the end of the session. I took a few pictures and watched as Dina left the court and was surrounded by autograph seekers and picture takers. Then as she was going down the tunnel into the player’s locker rooms (or at least I assume that is where it led to.) one guy held up his hand for a high five. Dinara complied and then disappeared tossing a final “Gracias” over her shoulder.
At that stage it was about 10:45 so I decided to go into the second main court, the Lenglen where Anastasia Myskina was playing against Sania Mirza. I would watch that match then head back to Court # 9 to watch Dinara and Roberta play their doubles match against a French pair of Harding and Brunel.
Anastasia, played pretty well. After going a break down she got it back straight away and never really looked back. There were some cutesy shots and both players had quite a few winners. For anyone that’s never seen Sania Mirza play, she’s basically the sort of player that takes a lot of risks, accelerates when ever she can and doesn’t mind going for the line 9/10.
Clay isn’t really her thing though and Anastasia was never really bothered. She won the first set 6/4 and the second set was a formality really 6/1. Still it’s always nice to see her doing well. I quite like Anastasia and I know she’s had a tough time of it in the recent past.
After that match I abandoned that court and went to watch Dinara’s doubles match. I’ve never really watched a whole lot of doubles but it was good fun. The cool thing about the annexes is that you’re practically on top of the court. I was standing right behind Dina and Roberta’s chair. I could hear them talking to each other like two feet in front of me.
It seems that they speak Spanish to each other. Or at least Dinara speaks Spanish to Roberta, Roberta may or may not have replied in the same language. She may have replied in Italian for all I know. I recently discovered that Spanish and Italian are actually quite understandable to each other. Continuing on the language theme a bit. Dinara’s Spanish accent is very Spanish and not Latin American Spanish at all. Marat has it as well obviously, but not as heavy. Dina was showing off her language skills today cause the first thing she did was ask for more towels in English (the poor French ball girl had a time figuring out what she was after nevertheless) and then at the end of the match, some Russian guy said something to her in, you guessed it Russian, and she replied in kind.
As for the match itself. I was pretty impressed. Dinara and Roberta dominated completely. Dina is the stronger one from the back of the court and Roberta more the natural volleyer. Still Dinara did pretty well at the net and the few mistakes made by her or Roberta did not really matter, they still won 6/1 6/1.
JACKPOT
Leaving Dinara’s match is when I struck pay dirt. As I said one letter makes all the difference. Take the a off of Safina and it leaves you with Safin which is exactly what happened. Leaving Court 9# I heard a woman say, I just saw Marat, he’s on court 13.
Now close your eyes and imagine the fastest thing you can think of and you have an idea of my hurry to make it to court 13. I ran, I fell, ignored the fall, got up and kept running. Over the top of one wall, I glimpsed the Sun Bun and commenced sending subliminal messages to Marat along the lines of “Don’t’ you dare move until I get there.”
I got to a spot on the fence. A guy behind me pointed to Marat and said, “Do you know who that is?” As in he was asking me, as in he did not know! I looked at him incredulously. “It’s Marat Safin. You know 2 meter tall Russian, won a couple of Grand Slams, was number one for a while?” The guy shrugged.
Still somewhat bemused I focused my attention on Marat. He was hitting with some unidentified Spanish looking player. Hitting well, cleanly. He looked focused. Peter was in the background, wandering around. I saw him and sort of heard him speaking to a tournament official. His accent is very Scandinavian but he has a deep voice.
Then lo and behold Lleyton Hewitt and Andy Roddick arrived. Cleary they had booked time on the court after Marat. Marat basically ignored Andy or at least that’s what it looked like. There didn’t appear to be any sign of acknowledgment between the two although Andy did say a few words to Peter.
Then Marat went to get his stuff, he signed a couple autographs alongside the court and headed off. I ran off to the other side, where the door to the court was. There was whole other crowd there waiting to mob Marat for more autographs and pictures. There was a lot of jostling going on and one lady ruined one of my attempts to take a picture by putting her huge afro between me and Marat’s face. I eventually did get a clear picture of his profile.
If I were a ruder sort, I’d of pushed and shoved with the best of them and gotten closer to him. As it was he was hardly three feet away from me. He said something to some one in English about not having any more pens and then said something else in Spanish. After that he disappeared down some stairs and inside a building barred to the public.
As you can guess, that was pretty much the highlight of my day. It took me a while to start breathing again. I then went to Place des Mousquataires where the big screen is to see what Monfils and Murray were up to on center court. I watched that for about an hour or so and then I headed off on the second part of my mission.
Monfils and Murry had a marathon going which was to my advantage. It turns out that starting a five o clock in the afternoon its possible to get tickets for the main court. In theory I should have been able to exchange my Lenglen ticket for a place on Center court.
Apparently that is not exactly how it works. What you have to have is just a regular annex ticket, (one that gives access to all the courts except the two main ones) and 1,3, or 7 euros.
Now anyone who knows me knows, that I don’t like Paul Henri Mathieu. It’s nothing personal really or rather it is. I just don’t like him. There is no real reason. Just a visceral reaction. That’s how it is sometimes. As it happens though, Mathieu in a roundabout kind of way is the reason I got a ticket for Center Court.
I was first in line and there was a girl behind me that really wanted to go on Langlen to see Mathieu and who didn’t mind seeing Roddick as well. I gave her my ticket, she gave me hers which I promptly exchanged for one for Center court and off I was to watch Marat’s match.
When I got to center court though., Justine Henin- Hardenne was wrapping things up. Sort of. She won the first set and was just starting the second set. Lucky for me, Justine didn’t feel like wasting time, she wrapped things up fairly quickly and it was time for Mulan Man to make his entrance.
THE MATCH AND MY THOUGHTS
ACT ONE
In the first set, Marat did not really play badly. He had his chances to break Gonzales but he did not take enough of them. At the same time though there were some great shots and some fantastic tennis from him. The basic theme of the first set and the match really is that Marat made mistakes at the wrong time, most of which stem from the now infamous lack of confidence.
He had the initiative in a lot of the points. He went to the net, and volleyed pretty well. Gonzalez made him play a lot of smash volleys and Marat didn’t miss a single one. The first set, for me was about missed chances.
BREATHTAKING
The second set was Marat playing great tennis. He hit the ball cleanly, went for his shots and basically blew Gonzalez off the court. The main difference with the second and first set is that Marat took his chances. He put the set out of Gonzalez’s reach early on.
PAY CASH
The third set was basically lost as far as Marat was concerned with one bad service game. He played one game badly on his serve and then did not really get a look in on the returns. Gonzales served well as key moments. There was one moment where he aced Marat twice in a row and that really pissed Marat off.
Marat held his serve pretty easily for the rest of the set but he couldn’t get the break back and lost the set. That seemed to deflate him somewhat. It was dark, cold, windy and physically I am not sure if Marat had five sets in him today or in any case the thought of it seemed to tire him out.
UNLUCKY
The fourth set was just really unlucky for Marat to be honest. He was probably a bit “hung-over” from losing the third and he lost his serve straight away. Things spiraled out of control quickly as far as the scoreline but not in terms of the play.
The games were really tight. Lots of deuces and advantages and Marat had his chances. Having said that, he also fought really hard. Gonzalez put him under a lot of pressure and he resisted as best he could. I lost track of the number of break points he saved, often playing really good tennis to do so.
I think we’ve talked about Marat not having confidence to play well the important points in recent times. Today he played them pretty well. Bad luck for him Gonzales played them a little bit better and that minute difference comes from confidence.
Not to mention that Gonzales got damn lucky. There were a lot of line calls that were at the extreme limit and on the point for him to go 5-0 up the ball bounced off the lining of the net and out. Marat’s problem throughout the whole thing was finishing points.
ON TO BIGGER AND BETTER THINGS
Marat was clearly disappointed after the match but at the same time, during the match I didn’t get the feeling that he was putting himself under pressure. Having said that with Marat it’s hard to tell where the line is between not putting pressure on himself and not expecting enough from himself.
What I will say, is that contrary to his last match in Hamburg, Marat played with conviction in his shots, even when he was way down. Even at 5-0 down with Gonzalez serving for the match, Marat played all of his shots with the intention of hurting his adversary and it worked cause he broke. Unfortunately he couldn’t hold serve after.
It has to be said that at that stage the conditions really weren’t great. It was getting dark, it was 13 degrees, it was windy. To be fair, Marat did not really serve as well as he is able over the duration of the match. There were some impressive aces (214km/hr on the T and 209km/hr exterior) but his first serve let him down on several occasions. He committed three double faults and they were all are towards the end of the match, two of them in the same game. Part of that probably due to just tiredness.
And having said all of that, Marat did not play a bad match at all. There were great shots from him throughout the whole match and spells of really good tennis. The second set was really good obviously but there were games in the other sets that he played particularly well.
When Russia played France, I remember saying that it was essential for Marat to win his match for his confidence. He did, he played great against Gasquet and it seemed like that was it, he was back. I don’t know if it was the bout of flu or the ankle injury that interrupted the dynamic or if it was a natural let down of circumstances but I now wonder if that Davis Cup win, didn’t have the opposite effect that it was supposed to.
In a way I think it’s like being bi polar (not that I am accusing Marat of having any kind of personality disorder J) in that when he came back he was playing so well, beating top players it was almost like being manic, which means hyper, a like unreasonably happy and active for those of you who don’t know.
And when you’re in that place you feel like nothing can touch you ( I don’t know about y’all but I don’t remember ever seeing Marat as relaxed and serene as he was during that Davis Cup tie) but when you come back down to normal you feel like you’ve hit rock bottom which is not the case at all. I repeat, Marat is not playing that badly, from a purely tennis point of view.
In a way I think the early run of results when he came back was something of an illusion. Coming back after seven months of injury, getting your match fitness perfect and regaining real confidence, that unshakeable belief in what you do on court, takes time, a lot of time. Getting to his top form, is not gonna happen from one match to the next.
He’s not gonna pull off a surprise win and then see a light bulb turn on over his head. It’s going to be a lot of little details that slowly build up. As I said there were great shots today, good tennis at times and a will to give everything on court.
Physically I think he’s a ways away from really being able to play five tough sets, especially on clay which is normal. I don’t know how long it is gonna take for these tiny details to line up. It could be weeks, months or even a year from now but I didn’t leave the stadium with the same feeling of hurt and helplessness that I felt after the Hamburg match.
As far as I am concerned the positive signs are there if you are willing to look for them and believe in them enough. I do. I believe in Marat and I can’t ask him to be patient with himself if I’m not willing to have the same patience. We’ll see what happens at Wimbledon but I think that what Marat needs to be focusing on is the second half of the season. Hard court and indoor tournaments where he has no points to defend, could help getting the confidence sorted and then the end of season will give him time to get his fitness back to it’s peak.
RANDOM DETAILS
There was a Russian guy (no not, Marat, a different Russian guy) somewhere in the crowd who kept talking to Marat in between points in Russian. I have no clue what he was saying but it was pretty steady commentary or at least up until the third set.
There was one point where after Marat won it, he turned to face the stands where I was sitting and we both did the same little fist pump at the same time. I don’t know if I explained that well, but it looked almost simultaneous, like he and I had the same reaction at the same time to the same thing.
That was the interesting part. I’d never seen Marat play in person, but at the same time there was a kind of déjà vu about it. Marat is so familiar to me even though I don’t know him, if that makes sense. So watching him this time didn’t really feel different except for one thing.
Without the TV cameras doing close ups on one player and then the other and the running commentary, I was free to focus exclusively on Marat. And of course there was the racket throwing (he didn’t actually break it) and the heated discussions with the ref (Carlos Ramos) and a scream or two.
Oh and I spared a thought for the Mulan Ladies when he lifted his shirt and showed me some skin. Hehehe . It lasted long enough for me to appreciate but not long enough to take a picture. And besides I think there will probably be better pictures of the match itself on the Internet taken courtside by the pros.
So there you have it. My first day at Roland Garros. I’d have loved to see Marat win but I won’t hold against him (as if I could stay mad at Marat…. ). I’ll just look forward to the next time I see him. NY in the summer? Paris- Bercy in the fall?
