sweety_1100
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Part Three (the last I promise)
***
I have a front-row seat for Safin v. Martin. I've never watched a tennis match from this close, and there's a powerful, defamiliarizing intensity to it. No other sport isolates its athletes to the degree you find in a professional singles match. Not even a ring-man or a caddy for comfort. So much time between each point - to think about what's going wrong, to get nervous or mad, to doubt. So much physical space around each player. And there's the hush, the always imperfect hush - it's a game that can be disrupted by somebody coming back late from the bathrooom. Not, in short, a game that is friendly to head cases.
Martin, at five nine, looks almost jockeylike across the net from Safin, who's smacking the soles of his shoes with his racket, one at a time, to shake lose the clay, then stamping his feet like a bull in expectation of the serve. He's in form today, making no mistakes. All around me there are regular exclamations, after points, of klassik! And zuper!
The match is over in fifty-one minutes. Safin hasn't played like this since January, since the Australian. But this is only the first round. One must remain calm.
And indeed, his foray in Hamburg ends up being a perfect little tow-match distillate of Safinism. The very next day, in the second round, he faces the willowy blond Spaniard Juan Carlos Ferrero, "El Mosquito." They've known each other since they were kids in Spain, know the weaknesses of each other's games like you know how to piss off a sibling.
Safin wins the first set 6-4, and I can't suppress a grin. Our man is back. It wasn't just a blip. Safin's doing this thing he does, that he's pretty much alone on the tour in doing, of setting up early for a forehand and then neglecting to take any futher skitter-steps, just standing there waiting to devastate the ball. Ferrero seems unfazed, however, like he can afford to wait this out - like he knows something - which I noted under the heading "Bad Signs."
Ferrero starts out the second set by breaking Safin's serve. That's okay - he can get it back. But then it happens, at 2-0 Ferrero, second set, Safin serving, 40-30.
Safin hits a first serve the catches the center line. There's no audible call, and Ferrero returns the ball (a weak return); then Safin hits a winner. But in the middle of Safin's shot, Ferrero turns and makes this ambiguous gesture, like "Hey, wasn't that..." The umpire puts up his hands and calls the ball out. It's almost as if he's fallen asleep and then, waking up to find Ferrero staring at him, made the call out of embarassment. Safin accepts this turn of events - I don't see why, since he'd be right to complain - and he lets another few points go by.
Now they are at duece. And here, here is where he decides to lose it. He stalks toward the chair, muttering along the way. He's evidently asking why no one heard this first, mysterious "out" call. Fergus Murphy, the diminutive Irish chair umpire, says, "Well, Juan heard it, Marat."
"Who gives a feck what he heard?"
Safin spits. Murphy says something inaudible.
"So, how thee feck-"
"Just watch the language, Marat."
"No, listen, it's peesing me off."
"I know. But everyone can hear us."
"I don't give a sheet. You mech a meestech."
The crowd is as one now in jeering Safin, though I'm seeing smiles on their faces. Is he being mocked in his suffering here, or is he...feeding off them?
Murphy says, "I don't really understand you, Marat." So Safin climbs up the chair until his face is almost touching Murphy's.
"Don't come up here Marat," Murphy says, sounding equal parts scared and amused. But it is too late. Safin is now openly taunting the crowd, waving his arms like, "Yeah, yeah, cheer louder you eedeeots." Three solid minutes of this go by.
Safin wins the game, but on the changeover he's still complaining. He looks up at Murphy and shouts, Coriolanus-like, "If you mech a meestach, I cannot poot you a warning! You can poot a warning to me!"
Now it's Ferrero's turn. He bangs on the chair with his racket, to get Murphy's attention. "I'm talking to him, Juan" Murphy says. And Ferrero points out that this is precisely the problem: Make him get on with it.
When play resumes, the match is clearly over, I know that might sound sort of fatalistic, but I've watched a lot of Safin matches, and I know the signs. Believe it or not, the self-berating and the racket smashing are meaningless. Those can happen whether he's fated to win or lose (and they are certainly happening today). The true signs of disaster in a Safin match are slightly more understated. Sign 1: He smacks a ball that's no longer in play, a bit too aggressively, toward one of the corners. (Check.) Sign 2: He starts hitting for the lines, in attempting winners, when two feet inside would do. (Check.) Sign 3: He starts netting his midcourt forehands. (Check.) Ferrero win 4-6 6-6 6-2.
Later, at the press conference, it's not the loss but Ferrero's little snit - his beating on the umpire's chair - that has Marat upset. "He just came to the chair umpire," Safin says. "He didn't even say, "Excuse me."
***
The closest I come to forcing the point with Safin, back in the limo, is when we're talking about Roger Federer, the 24-year-old Swiss master and uninterrupted world number one for going on a year and a half. In a way, Federer is casting a shadow over the career of every professional tennis player right now, but the comparison with Safin is particulary pointed, because Safin is often mentioned as the one player who possesses the sheer physical genius to challenge Federer steadily, the one who could not just upset Federer now and then but maybe rival him.
"Federer," Safin says, "he cannot lose, because he has everything that God gave him, he used everything. Me, I have my weaknesses. My problems. That's me. But I can't fight nature."
"But is consistency a goal of yours?" I ask him. "Do you want to be more like Federer?"
"Of course I want to be," he says. "But it is difficult. It's difficult because... I'm a different person from Federer. Nobody can be that consistent."
"But you beat him."
"Well, yeah, no..."
I'd sensed my opening - tiny as it was - and damned if I wasn't about to exploit it. "You beat him when he was playing his best tennis," I say, "On a surface he likes-"
"One match doesn't change-"
"Well, the five-set semifinal of a Grand Slam. That's not just a-"
I am aware - Safin is, too - that I'm no longer talking as a journalist but as a demented fan.
"Yeah," Safin says, "but he won another couple of tournaments afterward. Me... Look, Federer is not an example! He has a different way of thinking. That's why he's the way he is. I'm a different person; I've been like this for many years."
For maybe half a minute, we're silent, I'm wondering - sincerely asking myself - if I'd ever really want him to be more like Federer. Isn't there something about such regular perfection that leaves one a little cold? The thought takes me back to my days playing third singles on a public high school team in Ohio, that feeling I'd get when we'd make it to districts, all confident after having won the city, and suddenly I'd be up against some kid with country-club strokes, and it'd feel like swinging a paddle underwater. Safin knows that feeling. As unapproachably great as he is, he knows it on a regular basis. He does suffer. Isn't that why I can't really hate him?
"My time will come," Safin says. "You can't forget how to play tennis. It's just waiting for the moment." And then he's climbing out the car, on his way back to the tour, on his way to losing at the French Open in the fourth round and at Wimbledon in the third round and after that - I refuse to doubt it - glory.
safinator.com
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***
I have a front-row seat for Safin v. Martin. I've never watched a tennis match from this close, and there's a powerful, defamiliarizing intensity to it. No other sport isolates its athletes to the degree you find in a professional singles match. Not even a ring-man or a caddy for comfort. So much time between each point - to think about what's going wrong, to get nervous or mad, to doubt. So much physical space around each player. And there's the hush, the always imperfect hush - it's a game that can be disrupted by somebody coming back late from the bathrooom. Not, in short, a game that is friendly to head cases.
Martin, at five nine, looks almost jockeylike across the net from Safin, who's smacking the soles of his shoes with his racket, one at a time, to shake lose the clay, then stamping his feet like a bull in expectation of the serve. He's in form today, making no mistakes. All around me there are regular exclamations, after points, of klassik! And zuper!
The match is over in fifty-one minutes. Safin hasn't played like this since January, since the Australian. But this is only the first round. One must remain calm.
And indeed, his foray in Hamburg ends up being a perfect little tow-match distillate of Safinism. The very next day, in the second round, he faces the willowy blond Spaniard Juan Carlos Ferrero, "El Mosquito." They've known each other since they were kids in Spain, know the weaknesses of each other's games like you know how to piss off a sibling.
Safin wins the first set 6-4, and I can't suppress a grin. Our man is back. It wasn't just a blip. Safin's doing this thing he does, that he's pretty much alone on the tour in doing, of setting up early for a forehand and then neglecting to take any futher skitter-steps, just standing there waiting to devastate the ball. Ferrero seems unfazed, however, like he can afford to wait this out - like he knows something - which I noted under the heading "Bad Signs."
Ferrero starts out the second set by breaking Safin's serve. That's okay - he can get it back. But then it happens, at 2-0 Ferrero, second set, Safin serving, 40-30.
Safin hits a first serve the catches the center line. There's no audible call, and Ferrero returns the ball (a weak return); then Safin hits a winner. But in the middle of Safin's shot, Ferrero turns and makes this ambiguous gesture, like "Hey, wasn't that..." The umpire puts up his hands and calls the ball out. It's almost as if he's fallen asleep and then, waking up to find Ferrero staring at him, made the call out of embarassment. Safin accepts this turn of events - I don't see why, since he'd be right to complain - and he lets another few points go by.
Now they are at duece. And here, here is where he decides to lose it. He stalks toward the chair, muttering along the way. He's evidently asking why no one heard this first, mysterious "out" call. Fergus Murphy, the diminutive Irish chair umpire, says, "Well, Juan heard it, Marat."
"Who gives a feck what he heard?"
Safin spits. Murphy says something inaudible.
"So, how thee feck-"
"Just watch the language, Marat."
"No, listen, it's peesing me off."
"I know. But everyone can hear us."
"I don't give a sheet. You mech a meestech."
The crowd is as one now in jeering Safin, though I'm seeing smiles on their faces. Is he being mocked in his suffering here, or is he...feeding off them?
Murphy says, "I don't really understand you, Marat." So Safin climbs up the chair until his face is almost touching Murphy's.
"Don't come up here Marat," Murphy says, sounding equal parts scared and amused. But it is too late. Safin is now openly taunting the crowd, waving his arms like, "Yeah, yeah, cheer louder you eedeeots." Three solid minutes of this go by.
Safin wins the game, but on the changeover he's still complaining. He looks up at Murphy and shouts, Coriolanus-like, "If you mech a meestach, I cannot poot you a warning! You can poot a warning to me!"
Now it's Ferrero's turn. He bangs on the chair with his racket, to get Murphy's attention. "I'm talking to him, Juan" Murphy says. And Ferrero points out that this is precisely the problem: Make him get on with it.
When play resumes, the match is clearly over, I know that might sound sort of fatalistic, but I've watched a lot of Safin matches, and I know the signs. Believe it or not, the self-berating and the racket smashing are meaningless. Those can happen whether he's fated to win or lose (and they are certainly happening today). The true signs of disaster in a Safin match are slightly more understated. Sign 1: He smacks a ball that's no longer in play, a bit too aggressively, toward one of the corners. (Check.) Sign 2: He starts hitting for the lines, in attempting winners, when two feet inside would do. (Check.) Sign 3: He starts netting his midcourt forehands. (Check.) Ferrero win 4-6 6-6 6-2.
Later, at the press conference, it's not the loss but Ferrero's little snit - his beating on the umpire's chair - that has Marat upset. "He just came to the chair umpire," Safin says. "He didn't even say, "Excuse me."
***
The closest I come to forcing the point with Safin, back in the limo, is when we're talking about Roger Federer, the 24-year-old Swiss master and uninterrupted world number one for going on a year and a half. In a way, Federer is casting a shadow over the career of every professional tennis player right now, but the comparison with Safin is particulary pointed, because Safin is often mentioned as the one player who possesses the sheer physical genius to challenge Federer steadily, the one who could not just upset Federer now and then but maybe rival him.
"Federer," Safin says, "he cannot lose, because he has everything that God gave him, he used everything. Me, I have my weaknesses. My problems. That's me. But I can't fight nature."
"But is consistency a goal of yours?" I ask him. "Do you want to be more like Federer?"
"Of course I want to be," he says. "But it is difficult. It's difficult because... I'm a different person from Federer. Nobody can be that consistent."
"But you beat him."
"Well, yeah, no..."
I'd sensed my opening - tiny as it was - and damned if I wasn't about to exploit it. "You beat him when he was playing his best tennis," I say, "On a surface he likes-"
"One match doesn't change-"
"Well, the five-set semifinal of a Grand Slam. That's not just a-"
I am aware - Safin is, too - that I'm no longer talking as a journalist but as a demented fan.
"Yeah," Safin says, "but he won another couple of tournaments afterward. Me... Look, Federer is not an example! He has a different way of thinking. That's why he's the way he is. I'm a different person; I've been like this for many years."
For maybe half a minute, we're silent, I'm wondering - sincerely asking myself - if I'd ever really want him to be more like Federer. Isn't there something about such regular perfection that leaves one a little cold? The thought takes me back to my days playing third singles on a public high school team in Ohio, that feeling I'd get when we'd make it to districts, all confident after having won the city, and suddenly I'd be up against some kid with country-club strokes, and it'd feel like swinging a paddle underwater. Safin knows that feeling. As unapproachably great as he is, he knows it on a regular basis. He does suffer. Isn't that why I can't really hate him?
"My time will come," Safin says. "You can't forget how to play tennis. It's just waiting for the moment." And then he's climbing out the car, on his way back to the tour, on his way to losing at the French Open in the fourth round and at Wimbledon in the third round and after that - I refuse to doubt it - glory.
safinator.com
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