Post by Annie on Jun 28, 2005 15:52:22 GMT 3
The Reluctant Hero
Heroism is endurance for one moment more.
Even forgetting about the Russian team’s triumph in Bercy, with Marat Safin playing the role of the unsung hero – by leveling the field and giving the Russians one more window of opportunity to win the Davis Cup; or even his magnificent, eat-your-hearts-out-critics-and-nonbelievers triumph earlier in the same locale with his Paris Masters Series win – there is no question that Marat Safin is a hero – the quintessential gladiator with guts of steel, a spirit on fire and a heart brimming with courage.
It takes a lot of fortitude, walking in his shoes. Like Maximus the Gladiator, it is plain to see that Marat is the best there is in the field, athletically speaking – with his intimidating physique, his classical training, his stamina and endurance, his speed and power, and the impressive arsenal of weapons he has at his command. He possesses the same daredevil brand of bravery, the kind where you just grit your teeth, clamp your jaw tight and go for it, with fire sparking from your eyes. He shares the same explosive passion, fueled by either burning desire or blind desperation, which manifests itself in an intensity aimed to obliterate the enemy.
Like Maximus, Marat is the best in the arena. And perhaps precisely because of this, Marat – like Maximus – displays that tiny but nonetheless palpable reluctance of being the hero. For very private reasons of their own, both gladiators have a marked aversion to the spotlight. If there was a way to do their jobs without focusing undue attention to themselves, they would grab it like a shot. Maximus obviously has a past to hide. But with Marat, it’s a different story.
With Marat the tennis player, it’s a question of nerves. The intense competitive atmosphere of the ATP in the 21st century, where generally speaking it’s every man for himself, unlike team sports – means there are expectations and predictions and pressures from all sides. The media, the tennis community, the fans, fellow players, the wide world of international sports – all eyes are on you. And in the world of tennis, that means that all your results, all your stats, all your wins and loses are your sole responsibility. And you are forever being judged and compared and analyzed by these results.
This would be enough to give pause to even the average player. Try applying it to the one who is seen as the future of men’s tennis, the player judged to be the most outstanding, the most gifted, the most talented, the one with the most potential. The one “who will save men’s tennis” as some quarters have even ventured to point out. In Marat’s case, then, the pressure to “deliver” is magnified tenfold. Now open your eyes and take a good look at this demi-god, as he has been painted, and recognize what a private, down-to-earth person he is. It doesn’t take much figuring to realize how all this attention and pressure weighs heavily on his shoulders.
And yet –
"When we long for life without difficulties, remind us that oaks grow strong in contrary winds and diamonds are made under pressure." -- Peter Marshal
Both times in Bercy at the end of this year’s tennis season, Marat looked like a mighty oak against the contrary winds, and proved himself a diamond under pressure. From reading Dendy’s and Ruth and Vee’s reports, it appears that Marat accomplished this by solid commitment, and uncharacteristic yet unwavering discipline. As I pointed out in an earlier article, these are what separate the good players from the best in the world. These qualities, combined with natural talent and raw guts and ambition, transform a player from mediocre to exceptional. In Marat’s case, he is already exceptional by himself, but like a diamond in the rough, if he is to live up to his potential, he needs a good bit of polishing.
That is, assuming he feels the need to prove himself, to “live up” to anything.
Personally, I am always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught.
Winston Churchill (1874-1965)
The great conflict in Marat is that he is famously bull-headed. He believes in following the grain in your own wood. He is fiercely independent, a trait he exhibited early on even as a child, and later reinforced by his growing-up years in Valencia, Spain. It is not so much a question of having problems with authority, as it is a case of being free, self-sufficient, and intensely private. Marat has developed a reputation of gregariousness, of being one of the most amiable players on tour, one of the nicest and most accommodating tennis idols to the fans, one of the wittiest and most humorous personalities in the locker room and in interviews. But that is just one facet of the whole person. It is all part of “his job”.
Away from the limelight he is a reserved, quiet, thoughtful young man, despite his other reputation as a party boy and a ladies’ man. More often than not, says good friend Marc Rosset, you can find Marat Safin relaxing with a good book. He doesn’t like discussing his family. (And often this is misinterpreted as something else.) Neither does he like talking about his private life, mostly answering with the curt reply – “I’m young. I want to enjoy life while I can.” Meaning - I play tennis and do my job, but my private affairs are my own, if you don’t mind.
In fact, he is so down-to-earth that he has no star complex at all; it isn’t hard to imagine him laughing excitedly with his friends and family about being on the David Letterman show, or meeting Bill Clinton, or having a grand old time at the Playboy Mansion. In fact, one could easily picture him saving up magazine covers he has graced, to show his grandchildren someday! He is the type of person who refuses to take his superstar status seriously, and that’s what makes him so affable with his peers, so cordial with his fans, so agreeable to the media. Like the knight in shining armor heroes of old, he is courteous and gallant to all. His mother Rausa promised as much in an early interview – “I tell you, you will see (Marat’s politeness) on court.” For those of us who take keen interest in him, we know the truth in those words. All that the rest know are his “tantrums” and explosions and broken racquets.
And that is an incredible thing – how often Marat is misunderstood. Marat himself has pleaded that “I’m not completely nuts, I’m just different.” The fickle-minded tout him one day as The Next Pete Sampras; and then on the days that he stumbles and fails to deliver, it’s all about his “mental weakness”, his “immaturity”, and then they become like vultures just “waiting for him to crack”. This kind of feedback deals a big blow to his confidence, leading him to question and doubt himself. And that’s when the streak of losses accumulate, tournament on top of tournament, until we witness him puzzled and defeated, floundering and drowning.
An age is called Dark, not because the light fails to shine, but because people refuse to see it.
-- James A. Michener
But what makes him a hero in my eyes is his refusal to give up. His frenzied drive in the last leg of the season testifies to this fact – he played every week in every venue that was left on the ATP circuit, just trying to get enough points to qualify for the Masters Cup. If he has one fault, it is that he sets his sights too low. Or more correctly, he is too content – “If I finish no.3 in the world, I am happy” “If I continue playing like this and getting these results” –quarters and semis—“I am satisfied”. Perhaps Marat lacks the ambition, the burning desire, to truly be the best in the world – in actuality and not just in theory. But I don’t really believe that. The hunger is definitely there, and sometimes it’s almost eating him up inside, the way that he internalizes the pressure and allows it to unravel his game.
Perhaps the better way to put it is that he’s too willing to settle for less, and maybe this, too, stems from his refusal to take himself seriously. The need to prove himself and his potential is tempered by his nonchalance about his fame and skill. Most people would accuse him of laziness. But the truth, like the man, is quite simple. Unlike most athletes today, Marat was brought up not with competitiveness, but with sportsmanship. His parents, especially his mother, grilled into him the importance of always remembering that tennis is just a sport – that one day he may win, and the next he may lose. The important thing is to enjoy playing the sport, and to give your best.
When Marat remembers this is when he plays his finest. Then he can let go and just play, without worrying about how many points he’s making towards the rankings, about how his results will reflect on his chances of winning the next Grand Slam. When he doesn’t internalize all the outside pressure, and only listens to the burning desire inside him to win, that’s when he makes jaws drop. That’s when people grope around for praise and superlatives that are fitting enough to describe him. That’s when he brushes aside opponent after opponent, claiming title after title.
And even then he refuses to bask in his glory – he shrugs it all off, or even cracks jokes about it. “How did you do it?” (Defeat the legendary Pete Sampras in straight sets.) “You think I know???” That’s just the way he is – and how he wants to be known. Just an ordinary guy who plays tennis for a living. As he so aptly puts it, “The stars are only in the sky.” This humility is not contrived for effect. If there is anything Marat is, it’s that he’s honest and straightforward. The modesty about his blinding talent is just how he was brought up, it comes naturally to him.
Be humble for you are made of earth. Be noble for you are made of stars.
So that’s what makes Marat a reluctant hero. It isn’t a lack of ambition, or carelessness, or indolence, or a devil-may-care-attitude, or false modesty. It’s his humility. It’s how he asks to be understood, to be accepted and treated as just an ordinary, normal kind of guy, with normal moods, normal habits, normal hopes and dreams and disappointments and defeats. It is a given that being blessed with extraordinary gifts like Marat has been, gives him undeniable and automatic hero status. But like Maximus, Marat doesn’t want to be put on a pedestal. All he wants is the opportunity to go out there and do his job the best way he knows how, asking for nothing in return except respect and an appreciation for his privacy. Isn’t that what we all want?
Let us have Wine and Women, Mirth and Laughter, Sermons and soda water the day after.
- Lord Byron
Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. To keep our faces towards change and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable.
-- Helen Keller
Marat, against all odds you fought back and proved yourself at the very last second this year. As always it has been breathtaking, beginning from Melbourne right down to Bercy and that immense triumph for your country. I hope next year will be even better, through good and bad, through thick and thin. I hope you have a good vacation and a good rest, so that the start of the next season will find you relaxed, and unmindful of all the external pressure. Just continue to heed the voice inside, staying true to yourself. Let go, trust yourself, and I hope you know that I believe in you.
Isabelle
09.12.2002
Heroism is endurance for one moment more.
Even forgetting about the Russian team’s triumph in Bercy, with Marat Safin playing the role of the unsung hero – by leveling the field and giving the Russians one more window of opportunity to win the Davis Cup; or even his magnificent, eat-your-hearts-out-critics-and-nonbelievers triumph earlier in the same locale with his Paris Masters Series win – there is no question that Marat Safin is a hero – the quintessential gladiator with guts of steel, a spirit on fire and a heart brimming with courage.
It takes a lot of fortitude, walking in his shoes. Like Maximus the Gladiator, it is plain to see that Marat is the best there is in the field, athletically speaking – with his intimidating physique, his classical training, his stamina and endurance, his speed and power, and the impressive arsenal of weapons he has at his command. He possesses the same daredevil brand of bravery, the kind where you just grit your teeth, clamp your jaw tight and go for it, with fire sparking from your eyes. He shares the same explosive passion, fueled by either burning desire or blind desperation, which manifests itself in an intensity aimed to obliterate the enemy.
Like Maximus, Marat is the best in the arena. And perhaps precisely because of this, Marat – like Maximus – displays that tiny but nonetheless palpable reluctance of being the hero. For very private reasons of their own, both gladiators have a marked aversion to the spotlight. If there was a way to do their jobs without focusing undue attention to themselves, they would grab it like a shot. Maximus obviously has a past to hide. But with Marat, it’s a different story.
With Marat the tennis player, it’s a question of nerves. The intense competitive atmosphere of the ATP in the 21st century, where generally speaking it’s every man for himself, unlike team sports – means there are expectations and predictions and pressures from all sides. The media, the tennis community, the fans, fellow players, the wide world of international sports – all eyes are on you. And in the world of tennis, that means that all your results, all your stats, all your wins and loses are your sole responsibility. And you are forever being judged and compared and analyzed by these results.
This would be enough to give pause to even the average player. Try applying it to the one who is seen as the future of men’s tennis, the player judged to be the most outstanding, the most gifted, the most talented, the one with the most potential. The one “who will save men’s tennis” as some quarters have even ventured to point out. In Marat’s case, then, the pressure to “deliver” is magnified tenfold. Now open your eyes and take a good look at this demi-god, as he has been painted, and recognize what a private, down-to-earth person he is. It doesn’t take much figuring to realize how all this attention and pressure weighs heavily on his shoulders.
And yet –
"When we long for life without difficulties, remind us that oaks grow strong in contrary winds and diamonds are made under pressure." -- Peter Marshal
Both times in Bercy at the end of this year’s tennis season, Marat looked like a mighty oak against the contrary winds, and proved himself a diamond under pressure. From reading Dendy’s and Ruth and Vee’s reports, it appears that Marat accomplished this by solid commitment, and uncharacteristic yet unwavering discipline. As I pointed out in an earlier article, these are what separate the good players from the best in the world. These qualities, combined with natural talent and raw guts and ambition, transform a player from mediocre to exceptional. In Marat’s case, he is already exceptional by himself, but like a diamond in the rough, if he is to live up to his potential, he needs a good bit of polishing.
That is, assuming he feels the need to prove himself, to “live up” to anything.
Personally, I am always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught.
Winston Churchill (1874-1965)
The great conflict in Marat is that he is famously bull-headed. He believes in following the grain in your own wood. He is fiercely independent, a trait he exhibited early on even as a child, and later reinforced by his growing-up years in Valencia, Spain. It is not so much a question of having problems with authority, as it is a case of being free, self-sufficient, and intensely private. Marat has developed a reputation of gregariousness, of being one of the most amiable players on tour, one of the nicest and most accommodating tennis idols to the fans, one of the wittiest and most humorous personalities in the locker room and in interviews. But that is just one facet of the whole person. It is all part of “his job”.
Away from the limelight he is a reserved, quiet, thoughtful young man, despite his other reputation as a party boy and a ladies’ man. More often than not, says good friend Marc Rosset, you can find Marat Safin relaxing with a good book. He doesn’t like discussing his family. (And often this is misinterpreted as something else.) Neither does he like talking about his private life, mostly answering with the curt reply – “I’m young. I want to enjoy life while I can.” Meaning - I play tennis and do my job, but my private affairs are my own, if you don’t mind.
In fact, he is so down-to-earth that he has no star complex at all; it isn’t hard to imagine him laughing excitedly with his friends and family about being on the David Letterman show, or meeting Bill Clinton, or having a grand old time at the Playboy Mansion. In fact, one could easily picture him saving up magazine covers he has graced, to show his grandchildren someday! He is the type of person who refuses to take his superstar status seriously, and that’s what makes him so affable with his peers, so cordial with his fans, so agreeable to the media. Like the knight in shining armor heroes of old, he is courteous and gallant to all. His mother Rausa promised as much in an early interview – “I tell you, you will see (Marat’s politeness) on court.” For those of us who take keen interest in him, we know the truth in those words. All that the rest know are his “tantrums” and explosions and broken racquets.
And that is an incredible thing – how often Marat is misunderstood. Marat himself has pleaded that “I’m not completely nuts, I’m just different.” The fickle-minded tout him one day as The Next Pete Sampras; and then on the days that he stumbles and fails to deliver, it’s all about his “mental weakness”, his “immaturity”, and then they become like vultures just “waiting for him to crack”. This kind of feedback deals a big blow to his confidence, leading him to question and doubt himself. And that’s when the streak of losses accumulate, tournament on top of tournament, until we witness him puzzled and defeated, floundering and drowning.
An age is called Dark, not because the light fails to shine, but because people refuse to see it.
-- James A. Michener
But what makes him a hero in my eyes is his refusal to give up. His frenzied drive in the last leg of the season testifies to this fact – he played every week in every venue that was left on the ATP circuit, just trying to get enough points to qualify for the Masters Cup. If he has one fault, it is that he sets his sights too low. Or more correctly, he is too content – “If I finish no.3 in the world, I am happy” “If I continue playing like this and getting these results” –quarters and semis—“I am satisfied”. Perhaps Marat lacks the ambition, the burning desire, to truly be the best in the world – in actuality and not just in theory. But I don’t really believe that. The hunger is definitely there, and sometimes it’s almost eating him up inside, the way that he internalizes the pressure and allows it to unravel his game.
Perhaps the better way to put it is that he’s too willing to settle for less, and maybe this, too, stems from his refusal to take himself seriously. The need to prove himself and his potential is tempered by his nonchalance about his fame and skill. Most people would accuse him of laziness. But the truth, like the man, is quite simple. Unlike most athletes today, Marat was brought up not with competitiveness, but with sportsmanship. His parents, especially his mother, grilled into him the importance of always remembering that tennis is just a sport – that one day he may win, and the next he may lose. The important thing is to enjoy playing the sport, and to give your best.
When Marat remembers this is when he plays his finest. Then he can let go and just play, without worrying about how many points he’s making towards the rankings, about how his results will reflect on his chances of winning the next Grand Slam. When he doesn’t internalize all the outside pressure, and only listens to the burning desire inside him to win, that’s when he makes jaws drop. That’s when people grope around for praise and superlatives that are fitting enough to describe him. That’s when he brushes aside opponent after opponent, claiming title after title.
And even then he refuses to bask in his glory – he shrugs it all off, or even cracks jokes about it. “How did you do it?” (Defeat the legendary Pete Sampras in straight sets.) “You think I know???” That’s just the way he is – and how he wants to be known. Just an ordinary guy who plays tennis for a living. As he so aptly puts it, “The stars are only in the sky.” This humility is not contrived for effect. If there is anything Marat is, it’s that he’s honest and straightforward. The modesty about his blinding talent is just how he was brought up, it comes naturally to him.
Be humble for you are made of earth. Be noble for you are made of stars.
So that’s what makes Marat a reluctant hero. It isn’t a lack of ambition, or carelessness, or indolence, or a devil-may-care-attitude, or false modesty. It’s his humility. It’s how he asks to be understood, to be accepted and treated as just an ordinary, normal kind of guy, with normal moods, normal habits, normal hopes and dreams and disappointments and defeats. It is a given that being blessed with extraordinary gifts like Marat has been, gives him undeniable and automatic hero status. But like Maximus, Marat doesn’t want to be put on a pedestal. All he wants is the opportunity to go out there and do his job the best way he knows how, asking for nothing in return except respect and an appreciation for his privacy. Isn’t that what we all want?
Let us have Wine and Women, Mirth and Laughter, Sermons and soda water the day after.
- Lord Byron
Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. To keep our faces towards change and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable.
-- Helen Keller
Marat, against all odds you fought back and proved yourself at the very last second this year. As always it has been breathtaking, beginning from Melbourne right down to Bercy and that immense triumph for your country. I hope next year will be even better, through good and bad, through thick and thin. I hope you have a good vacation and a good rest, so that the start of the next season will find you relaxed, and unmindful of all the external pressure. Just continue to heed the voice inside, staying true to yourself. Let go, trust yourself, and I hope you know that I believe in you.
Isabelle
09.12.2002
