Darkness was beginning to engulf the skies, as dusk settled in on the French Open second round clash in Paris on Thursday, May 2004. The game had finally been concluded at two sets all and the court now rang with the excited clamor of impassioned fans.
And it was around that time when Marat Safin inexplicably decided to tug his shorts down.
Of all the mercurial Russian’s on-court antics, his stunning performances, his crucial victories, his enmity with racquets and his humorous press conference talks, this extraordinary act of witticism will perhaps inevitably always come to most fans’ minds when they think of Marat Safin.
What prompted him to make such a spontaneous gesture? The truth is, no one knows; yet it was impulsive, it was insane and it was typical Marat. The Russian had just struck a spectacular volley, and a Tim Henman, Hewitt, Nadal or Federer style celebration would have been a wholly unsatisfactory reaction. Therefore, the unpredictable tennis lord had seen it fitting to divest himself of his shorts.
He was later asked indeed what had prompted the curious stunt. “It was a great point for me”, Safin elaborated. “I felt like pulling my pants down. What’s bad about it?” The snickering audience didn’t quite know how to respond to that, and so the discussion moved on to more routine matters.
What is beyond question, however, is that Safin’s was an extraordinary personality and his absence from tennis was going to be sorely missed. His farewell from the game had been finalized earlier that week after a loss to Juan Martin del Potro precipitated the Russian’s exit from his last programmed tournament in Paris.
The Russian beamed as he made his way to the net after having hit his final significant tennis volley, and the audience at the Palais Omnisports bid a final farewell to the great champion with a standing ovation. Safin was presented with a keepsake trophy, and players both current and former poured out of the locker chamber to participate in the honors.
Safin then made his way to the post-match press conference quarter where he began by expressing his gratitude to the media personnel, thanking them for their services throughout his professional career. It was then time for the standard interrogation. Would Safin take up a battle at the senior’s tour in a decade’s time, a journalist asked. “If I’m still alive…” he replied. Was he considering coming out with an autobiography? “No chance, all my secrets will stay with me.” “Great” was how he would sum up his professional career. It is true reporters are well accustomed to such responses from players bidding farewell to their careers. Yet it was Marat Safin’s honest, outspoken and unreserved demeanor over the years that made him one of the media’s more interesting personalities. His extraordinarily puzzling outburst at a press conference in Toronto, July 2004, remains the player’s most unforgettable interview performances.
Yet Marat Safin was much more than an entertaining talker; his glittering tennis career captivated many, and at one point, took the world by storm. His annihilation of Pete Sampras in 2000 to win the US Open final was a confirmation of Safin’s formidable talent. Over the next three years, his dominance over the sport was quite pronounced, and he clinched his second key title at the 2005 Australian Open after remarkably overcoming an apparently invincible Roger Federer in the semi-final.
Remarkably, Safin’s was a career that stretched over two of the most illustrious eras in the game; he had battled Sampras and Agassi, and he had also tackled Federer and Nadal. As he finally put the lid on his professional tennis career, Marat Safin was a man with few regrets; he had exerted his utmost on court, he had enjoyed the playing, and he had taken home titles. He had once said: “If I was the type of person who had tennis, tennis, tennis all the time and I went to bed and ended up dreaming about tennis, I would go nuts.”
That dusky Thursday evening in Paris, Marat Safin was finally free to dream about other things, and surely, he is most probably enjoying himself now that he is at it.
Works Cited: BBC - Jonathan Overend: "Safin Says Goodbye."
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