Marat Safin - David Horton

Marat Safin was beaten today by Serbian number 2 Janko Tipsarevic 6-4 6-4 7-5 in a manner that suggests that the Russian will perhaps never again be a factor here in Paris.

Despite making an encouraging start by breaking the Serb early on to go ahead 3-1 in the opening set, Safin failed to press home his advantage and was broken twice to concede the opening set. From there it was an uphill battle for the mercurial Muscovite as his mood became as dismal as the cold gloomy weather; throwing his racquet and shrugging his shoulders as the match gradually slipped away from him.

Despite the occasional flash of brilliance which included a spectacular diving backhand volley winner which brought a roar of delight from the crowd and applause from his sporting opponent, the Russian by and large was all at sea, devoid of ideas to take control of the match. A disastrous ninth game of the second set saw him fall two sets to love behind, and from there it looked like there could only be a Serbian victory.

Serving at 5-6 down in the third set, Safin found himself two match points down after some wayward strokes. Tipsarevic put the Russian out of his misery on the next point when he forced him into error on the forehand volley.
"Well, life goes on", Safin said philosophically. "It wasn't really a match that I should have lost; it's only the second round. I guess there will be another chance and I'll play better. The luck will be on my side. Unfortunately, right now I feel like something doesn't come together, and that's why it's a lot of sad losses for the past, from the beginning of the year."
Looking ahead, Safin is not sure how many years he has in the game.
"Let's see first another couple of years, how it goes. It also depends on what the situation is going to be. I'm not really into playing around 50 in the world. It doesn't really motivate me to play tennis and travel around the world if the max we can make is 2nd, 3rd round and the position in the top 50. I make one semi-final somewhere in a small tournament (Las Vegas) and that's it. So it doesn't give me enough motivation to continue. Of course there is hope, I want to play tennis, and it will be a sad situation to leave being a struggling player. So I really hope that I can change and play another 3 or 4 years. Why not?"
Tipsarevic admitted that he was overawed coming into the match given Safin's recent form on clay.
"I was not thinking before I started the match that Marat is like a big, huge favourite of the match, first of all because I played him in a quarterfinal at the end of last year, and was really, really close to beating him. And secondly, I know that this year he hasn't been playing really great on clay courts. So I was thinking that this might be my chance to progress to the third round."

Andre Jones
Roland Garros
Paris