Who would have thought that I’d start my tennis day by watching Marat Safin beat the No. 11 player in the world, then walk into work to find out that Justine Henin had quit tennis. For good.
To read my Justine-retirement post, go to ESPN.com. For a few thoughts on Safin, stay here.
Over the course of his innumerable disasters in recent years, I’ve called Safin “irrelevant” and privately wished he would hang it up. He looked miserable in his work, a guy trapped on tour and unable to think of anything else to do. He seemed to want to play well, but all the losses had beaten him down to the point where there was nothing worth doing beyond going through the motions.
Safin has been fined for tanking in the past, and there’s no doubt he’s thrown a few matches away over the years. But what’s been frustrating to me, effort-wise, is his unwillingness to add anything to his game or try anything different once he gets behind. He began his career with a breakthrough backhand that allowed him to fend off opponents’ inside-out forehands. But in the decade since his debut, dozens of other players have developed the same backhand. Content to rally passively and rely on his clean ball-striking, he’s never taken the next step to stay ahead.
Today was different. Maybe it’s the clay that helps Safin’s 28-year-old body catch up to the ball, or the memory of great Hamburg matches from the past. Remember the fifth-set tiebreaker he lost to Gustavo Kuerten in the final one year? It was a glorious match, but also typical of a Safin loss—take it as far as possible, make it as painful as possible, then lose. It often seems that he determines whether he's going to win or lose a match before it even begins. Almost from the first game, you can see in his face and demeanor if he's going to win that third-set tiebreaker or not.
I had a good feeling about Safin's game from the start today. He’s lost a step, especially on his returns, but he was hitting cleanly and keeping his anger, which he’s famous for flashing at the most inopportune moments—like 30-30 in the first game—under control. When he's in this mode, you can see how much the game has lost without him. To my mind, only Pete Sampras has ever owned a serve that’s such a pleasure to watch. It was true again this morning.
What has kept Safin going through the years of zombie-like frustration and blind, pointless rage? Why would he stoop to qualifying for this event? I’d say it’s at least partly an obligation to his immense talent. He hardly seems like a born competitor or a guy with much of a killer instinct—he’s almost too gentlemanly in his relations with his opponents on court. Safin, like Andre Agassi, was coached from a young age by a driven parent (in his case, his mother), and it’s produced a similar love-hate relationship with the sport. He’s good at it, and there’s no getting away from that fact. It’s pretty much 180 degrees from the Henin approach—she'd put everything into the game, and enough was clearly enough for her. Safin's identity, in its morose and defeatist way, is too tied to the game for him to say that.
At least for today, that was a good thing. As the big Russian lumbered and slid around the Hamburg clay, his sense of obligation began to look something like determination. Which is a whole lot more fun to watch.