Photo via www.tennis-russia.ru

There are so many talented tennis players in Russia, that the country has its own awards ceremony to honor them. Last night’s Russian Cup awards, hosted by Anastasia Myskina at Moscow’s Radisson Slavyanskaya hotel, honored Nikolay Davydenko as Tennis Player of the Year (for being the top male Russian player for the 5th year in a row), Dinara Safina for “Achievement of the Year” (obtaining the No. 1 ranking) and Svetlana Kuznetsova for “Success of the Year” at Roland Garros.

The “main event” of the evening belonged to Marat Safin, who won an award for “contributions to the development of the world and Russian tennis.” I love this (google-translated) description of Marat’s special contributions (via www.championat.ru):

“12 years of tennis fans on all continents admire this guy. He was loved by almost all, even though everyone tried to see in him something of themselves, their dreams. The girls saw in him the ideal man, or, if you want, a sex symbol. Coaches thought he was a talented athlete with a unique physique. Opponents tried to guess the direction of his serve or backhand. Journalists of all countries noted his charisma, eccentricity and inimitable sense of humor. And, finally, for the audience it has always been a man-feast at all his tournaments which had full stadiums all these years, no matter at what ranking he was.”

(Yes, I know that the translation probably shouldn’t be “man-feast”, but it works for me. An alternate translation got “man-holiday” which also sounds appropriate.)

Speaking of man-feast:

Photo via Mens Tennis Forum

Notice in the photo, above, how packed the auditorium is. It looks like the Oscars! With Marat as the Clooney/Pitt/diCaprio stand-in, or course.

Marat has that post-retirement glow:

Photo via www.championat.ru. Click here to visit a photo gallery from the awards ceremony.

I love this video interview of Marat Safin, speaking in Paris after losing the last match of his career to Juan Martin del Potro. He says he realized during that match that he has a terrible forehand and maybe should have worked on it at some point during his career. I’m assuming he’s joking, but with Marat you never know:

Hey Marat – now that you have all this free time on your hands, how about working on the forehand. And coming out of retirement! Thanks to Judy for passing this along!

Here’s Marat’s terrible forehand in slow-mo (actually, it’s mostly just Marat in slo mo):

The backhand was always Marat’s glamour shot:

A nice rally form this year’s Shanghai tournament:

More nice shots:

I love this photo:

Thanks to the Safin fan at Mens Tennis Forum for finding/posting this.

So. . .anyone know if the now-retired Safin (wahhh!) and the Bercy-loser Federer (wahhh!) spent the night on the town together? Were you with them, by chance, doing body shots off Marat’s clavicle and cooing over photos of the Federer twins?  If so, I want the full report with photos and video! Thanks in advance.

Any day that Marat Safin and Roger Federer are kicked out of a tournament is a bad one. And today Marat’s gone forever! Oh well, at least some people are happy after Wednesday’s Paris Masters. Julien Benneteau got his best win, ever. Rafael Nadal saved 5 match points. Marat Safin doesn’t have to play tennis anymore. Whoopee f’ing doo.

Here are the video lowlights/highlights:

Andy Murray is also through, taking out James Blake in three tight sets.

Marat Safin played the last match of his professional career today at the Paris Masters in Bercy, losing in three sets to Juan Martin del Potro: 6-4, 5-7, 6-4. It was a “good” loss for him, the dignified exit he was hoping for. He could have won it, but didn’t “lose” it. He smashed just one racquet and hugged a friend and respected colleague over the net – a young gun who also made his name by beating a legend in the US Open final.

Fellow tour players and veterans were on hand to honor Marat after the match. Safin was given the “Bercy Key” and invited to come back anytime by Cedric Pioline. True to his personality, Marat didn’t shed a tear. But he made sure his fans welled up:

“This day will stand out for a very long time – until I pass through a different world. This is the day where all my memories will be in one box. Through my career all the defeats, all the losses, wins, all the new experiences that I had in tennis, all my money opened a lot of doors. This is a special day because I’m closing one door and hopefully another will open.”

“I know (retirement) is going to be difficult. . .We’re sportsmen and we overcome a lot of tough moments on the court. (This) will give me some perspective in future life and strength to continue.”

Here’s some video of Marat Safin’s retirement ceremony in Paris:

“A world class player and a world class guy,” said a commentator about Marat Safin today.

Yep, that about covers it. But let’s indulge a little. . .

Marat Safin won 15 ATP titles, including two Majors: the 2000 US Open (beating Sampras) and the 2005 Australian Open (beating Hewitt.) He was No. 1 in the world, twice led the Russian team to Davis Cup victory (2002 and 2006), and made the semifinals or better in all four Majors.

An impressive career, but considering that 7 of his 15 titles came in 2000, and that the 2005 Australian was the last title he ever won, could Marat Safin have done more? After losing to him in straights in the US Open final, Pete Sampras called Marat the future of tennis. Did Marat live up to that declaration? Did he achieve enough? Did he fulfill his massive potential? These questions came back to me recently when I read how Agassi swiped Darren Cahill away from Marat in 2002: “You can’t coach Safin,” Agassi appealed to Cahill. “He’s a loose cannon.” (via “Open, an Autobiography”)

But what if? What if Cahill had the silver bullet? What if Marat had focused? Been injured less? Worked harder? Wanted it more? The “what ifs” have dogged Safin for much of his career.

Safin tried to put these questions to rest after his match today:

“I don’t have a lot of them [titles] only 15, so not too many majors. But they were really special and very welcome. A lot of people [think] that I’m not really [a] hard worker, but you can ask all my coaches how I dedicated myself to tennis. I worked for it, and I worked very hard.” (via ATP)

That was his his official answer to “what if” today, but I prefer the answer he once gave to his buddy Svetlana Kuznetsova (via USA Today):

“Once I asked Marat this question, and I loved his answer,” Kuznetsova, the reigning Roland Garros champ, told a small group of reporters at the U.S. Open. “Maybe it’s not good for press, but he just says, ‘If grandma would have balls, she would be a grandpa.’ It’s an expression we say it in Russian: If? What would happen if? But ‘If’ didn’t happen.”

Marat Safin happened. And we’re grateful for it.

Marat Safin almost played the last match of his career yesterday, fighting past three match points to beat the 168 ranked Thierry Ascione at the Paris Masters. After that close call, Marat told the ATP that he wants “to retire with dignity.” He also said that it won’t be “too painful” to lose to his next opponent, Juan Martin del Potro. You know it’s time to retire when your interviews start to sound like appeals for euthanasia. Oh, Marat:

Marat was also featured in L’Equipe this week, reminiscing as only Marat can on the various high/lowlights of his career. Thanks to the folks at Mens Tennis Forum for posting and translating – I’ve posted some snippets below, click here for more.

Photo via L’Equipe via Mens Tennis Forum

On beating Pete Sampras in the 2000 US Open final:

“The match changed my life. Everything was new for me. It allowed me to become world number 1 a few weeks later but I wasn’t ready to handle the pressure. In the evening at the bar, I was still nervous. I had to drink a few vodkas to calm down, to come back down. I was too young. Nobody could guide me. Such a big thing engages your secret feelings, your own weaknesses. It’s not the kind of thing you can share with anyone. I didn’t feel good in my own skin. I didn’t enjoy myself as much as I should have.”

“Vodka!”

Part 2, just for the heck of it:

Whisky! Marat on his 2007 mountaineering misadventure:

“I was tired of tennis. I want to escape the circuit. Some of my friends were going to hike in Tibet and I asked if I could go with them. We managed to reach Cho You (at about 4000m), that was our camp, but I had headaches. They went on to reach the summit but I gave up. I had not taken any pills with me. I thought myself an athlete but I never had thought I could feel so bad. The only thing that helped was whisky. When you take a sip, you feel better for a couple of hours. The pressure and the headache go away. But it comes back, more painful. How much whisky would I have needed to drink in a month?“

Marat-the-Mountaineer via TennisInfoBlog

On retirement:

“I think that I am at the best age to retire. I have no family, no kids, I’m still young and I can discover new things. When you are older, there are many things you can’t do anymore like studying. He has a family, a daughter. We all have our way to deal with life. I would like to study law, just the basics to have the keys to do well in the business world, to have a better understanding of the working world.”

Here’s Safin trying out some of his amateur legal skills on a chair umpire – the famous “cigar and two chicks” argument:

On nemesis and fellow-retiree Fabrice Santoro:

“Fabrice, it seems he’s been around since 1800!”

On breaking his racquets:

“I must have broken 500 or 600 rackets in my career. When you think about it, many players who used the (HEAD) Prestige broke their rackets. Alonso, Ivanisevic, Arazi… These racquets are too fragile.”

Here’s an 8 minute long video of Marat and his racquets, if you have a racquet abuse fetish:

Marat Safin, who sided with Gasquet in his recent recreational drug troubles with the ATP, has taken a hard line against Andre Agassi and his drug test cover-up (via tennis.com):

“OK, so he feels guilty? Then he should give back his titles, his money and his Grand Slams. If he’s about fair play, he should go all the way. You know, the ATP have a bank account, he can pay them back if he wants to. I’m not defending the ATP, but what he said puts them in a bad position. The ATP allowed him to win lots of tournaments and lots of money and kept his secret, so why be bad to them?“

“Me, I don’t need money,” he said. “The question is: Why did he do this? What is done is done. Does he hope to sell more books? It’s absolutely stupid.“

Here’s Marat winning a “classic” against a post-meth Agassi at the 2004 Australian Open:

Safin plays Del Potro tomorrow in an afternoon match in Paris.

Photo by JACQUES DEMARTHON/AFP/Getty Images via Daylife

Marat Safin saved three match points today in the first round of the Paris Masters, a tournament he’s won three times in his career (a record he shares with Boris Becker). Watching him nearly flame-out against Thierry Ascione, a stocky 28-year-old French qualifier ranked 168 in the world, confirmed what his fans have long suspected and what Marat’s known for longer: he’s done, finished, good as dead on the ATP tour.

But Safin got a stay of execution today, serving himself out of trouble in the ninth game of the third set and finally winning the match, 7-3, in the tiebreak.

The ironic thing about my jailhouse metaphor is that Marat sees the end of his tennis career as a life-saver, not a death sentence:

“It’s beautiful what people see on TV, when you’re on the court, and there are all those people in the stadium,” Safin told the AFP in Paris. “But nobody sees the other side of it, when you have to do the massages, when you have to practise, when you have to do a lot of things. I haven’t been able to do a lot of the things I want to do.”

“Also, after a certain time, you live in a state of what feels almost like continuous stress. I want to get out of it, just so that I’m able to breathe.“

And what will the tournament organizers give Marat Safin at his final sendoff? A trophy representing the keys to the Bercy arena.

Juan Martin del Potro is his next opponent. Ah, free at last.

AP Photo/Michel Euler via Daylife

Okay enough of my doom and gloom. Here’s some of Safin at his best, against the best:

Anyone else just enjoy listening to these rallies? (Thank you to whoever made the video for not putting an annoying techno song over the action.)

On Sunday, Fabrice “the Magician” Santoro played what he says is the last professional tennis match of his 20-year career, losing to James Blake 6-4, 6-3 in the first round of the Paris Masters. After the match, Blake and Santoro exchanged “jerseys” and Santoro took his own kind of victory lap around the Bercy arena.

“Thank you for supporting me all these years, forcing me to push myself,” Santoro told his home crowd. “That way I could get the most of my passion. In principle, at the age of nearly 37, I should not be on the centre court at Bercy. So I am happy to pass the mantle on to youth.” (via the UKAP)

With all the publicity around Andre Agassi’s recent admission that he hates/hated tennis with a deep, dark passion, it’s nice to hear Fabrice talk about the joy tennis has brought him (via tennis.com):

“… thirty years devoted to tennis. It’s also thirty years that have passed very quickly. When you’re passionate, you don’t calculate the number of hours spent training, traveling, fighting on court. Everything comes naturally. Like today, I’ve always given the maximum.”

“All aspects of my career will be missed: the adrenaline, the contact with the press, the public and the uncertainty of the profession… it must be 525 tournaments [I've played]. And I have lost 519 times, it’s a lot (smiles).”

“Today, I’m content that all this stops and I can start a new life, a normal life.”

Blake – who won the first five-set match of his career against Santoro at the 2007 US Open (he had been 0-9 in five-setters before this) – praised Fabrice after Sunday’s match:

“He’s had a great career. It’s unbelievable how much success he’s had in singles and doubles and how well liked he is by his competitors, which I think says a lot about a person, when they do retire, how respected they are by the rest of the tour.”

The 36-year-old Frenchman, famous for his trick shots, spins and a mischievous gap-toothed grin, was not well-liked (at least on the court) by fellow post-Bercy retiree Marat Safin. Safin complained about Santoro’s longevity at this year’s French Open: “I regret he (Santoro) didn’t retire earlier… He destroyed a couple of tournaments in my life, and thanks to him, I couldn’t achieve some tournaments. So, he should have retired many years ago.”

The 2001 French Open was one of those tournaments:

Marat’s also been quoted as saying: “Being told I would play Santoro was being told I was to die.” The Frenchman owns their head-to-head 7-2.

Unlike Safin, Santoro never made the Big Time in singles (his best result at a Major was the quarterfinals of the Australian Open in 2006), but he’s accomplished quite a bit in his long career:

• Santoro has defeated 17 players who were ranked World No. 1 at some time during their careers (Jimmy Connors, Mats Wilander, Boris Becker, Stefan Edberg, Jim Courier, Andre Agassi, Pete Sampras, Thomas Muster, Marcelo Ríos, Gustavo Kuerten, Carlos Moyà, Pat Rafter, Juan Carlos Ferrero, Marat Safin, Lleyton Hewitt, Andy Roddick and Roger Federer). (via Wikipedia)
• Santoro’s won 6 ATP tour singles titles and 24 doubles titles. In doubles, he’s made the finals of every Major except the US Open, winning the Australian Open twice with partner Michael Llodra.
• Santoro won the longest singles match in the open era. At the 2004 French Open, he beat fellow Frenchman Arnaud Clément in a 6 hour, 33 minute first round match 6–4, 6–3, 6–7(5), 3–6, 16–14.
• With his participation in the 2008 Australian Open, Santoro broke Andre Agassi’s record in Major appearances over his career with a total of 62 tournaments played (Agassi’s record was 61). He made his 69th appearance at the 2009 US Open.

Given his impressive Major streak, the Magician may have one more trick up his sleeve – though he says he considers Sunday’s match his last, he may play the 2010 Australian Open. Having turned pro in 1989, doing so would make him the first player to participate in Majors spanning four different decades. A bientôt, Fabrice! See you Down Under.

So let’s bring out some Santoro highlights, shall we?

A classic point against Roger Federer:

Huh, this “tweener” looks familiar:

Defense? Santoro invented defense, son.

Spadea, Santoro definitely ain’t afraid of ya’

“You can’t out-trick the Magician.” But you can make Nalbandian even more hot and bothered than he already is.

Pete Sampras nicknamed Santoro “The Magician.” Here’s Pete getting sawed in half at the 1995 Rome Masters:

AP Photo/Laurent Cipriani via Daylife

Andre Agassi wasn’t the only bald tennis-playing daddy making news this weekend. Ivan Ljubicic told his own inspirational story (minus the meth and hair piece), after beating Michael Llodra, 7-5, 6-3 in the finals of the Grand Prix de Tennis de Lyon. It was the 30-year-old’s ninth ATP title and his first since winning ‘s-Hertogenbosch in 2007.

Ljubicic told reporters that Lyon has a special place in his jaded veteran’s heart:

“It’s a special place for me. I won my first title here in 2001 and here is my first title as a father. It’s my son’s first birthday in four days and it’s the best present I could offer to him.”

The 29-year-old Llodra, who is also a father, had this to say about Ivan’s victory: “I recently played with Ivan in doubles and I called him a grandad. And today the grandad won.” (quotes via tennis.com)

Grandpa Ljuby watches Llodra’s kids. Photo by REUTERS/Robert Pratta (FRANCE SPORT TENNIS) via Daylife

In St. Petersburg, Ukrainian qualifier Sergiy Stakhovsky won the second ATP tour title of his career, beating first-time finalist Horacio Zeballos on Sunday: 2-6, 7-6(8), 7-6(7). Coincidentally, Sergiy’s first title came over Ivan Ljubicic last year in Croatia. It’s hard for Safin fans to see a Stakhovsky vs. Zeballos final and not rue Marat’s three-set loss to the Ukrainian in the semifinals. If only Marat had pulled out the win, he would have had a chance to play an inexperienced qualifier in the final! He could have broken his nearly four-year title drought on Russian soil, just a couple weeks before his retirement! He could have used this new-found confidence to win his final tournament in Bercy,  announcing during the trophy ceremony that he’s decided to return to tour in 2010 with more ambition and drive than ever!

Or – in a more likely scenario – Safin would have lost to Zeballos in the final and turned his fans’ hearts to dust. So I thank Stakhovsky for saving us from that.

In the third ATP 250 indoor-hardcourt event of the week, hometown hope Jurgen Melzer beat top seed Marin Cilic in the finals of Vienna: 6-4, 6-3. It was the first time an Austrian had won the title since 1988. It’s the second title of the 28-year-old’s career.

Marat Safin may be limping off the tour in a couple weeks (WAH!), but he still has the best BS meter in the game. Here are Safin’s thoughts on Andre Agassi’s recent admission (via his autobiography) that he lied his way out of a drug suspension (CBS Sports):

“One should know how to be silent, but if you are so smart you should have spoken up earlier,” Safin said of Agassi after reaching the quarterfinals at the St. Petersburg Open.

“You will never live to see such revelations from me.”

“How they will escape this situation — this is the ATP’s and Agassi’s problem.” Safin added.

Does this mean that Marat won’t be writing his own tell-all memoir? I was so looking forward to reading Notes from the ATP Underground or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Sveta.

At the very least, Safin should continue to show up at tournaments for photo ops and press conferences. He doesn’t even need to play tennis anymore. Think about it, Marat.