Marat Safin will make his seniors debut at the Champions Series event in Rio this week, just months after retiring from the ATP tour. "It is almost a comedy that I am back in such a short time," he said.
Safin also gave a frank explantion of why he rarely played ATP events in South America, saying, "Early on the tour, I learned that it wasn't interesting for me to play in South America, because here it is too much work and not a lot of money. The tournaments here are ATP 250 and if I come, I play [Fernando] Meligeni in the first round, [Juan Ignacio] Chela or [Gaston] Gaudio in the second, maybe [Gustavo] Kuerten and then I would have spent four or five hours to win each match, would maybe lose in the semis and get a prize money of approximately US$10,000.
"With the taxes and air fares, I would win nothing. That is why I always played in Europe and in the States, on the hard courts that I like better."