| ..:: ARTICLES ::.. | Safin's Moon Rising At French
Friday, May 28, 2004
ESPN.com news services
The mercurial Russian advanced to the fourth round Friday by winning a two-day marathon against Felix Mantilla, 6-4, 2-6, 6-2, 6-7 (4), 11-9. The match was suspended Thursday because of darkness at 7-all in the fifth set and ended 24 minutes after it resumed when Mantilla sailed a backhand long.
Afterward, Safin was still annoyed about being penalized a point for dropping his shorts early in the fifth set Thursday.
"I felt it was a great point for me," the former U.S. Open champion said. "I felt like pulling my pants down. What's bad about it?"
To celebrate a drop shot he hit for a winner, Safin grabbed his shorts, pulled them down to his thighs and leaned over. The crowd cheered and laughed.
"Nobody complained," Safin said. "Everybody was OK. It wasn't like really bad."
He hitched up his pants with a smile, but it disappeared when chair umpire Carlos Bernardes Jr. penalized Safin a point. The Russian argued in vain with Bernardes and ITF supervisor Mike Morrissey, then applauded the ruling facetiously before play resumed.
Safin said tennis officials discourage making the sport fun.
"They tried to destroy the match," he said. "All of the people who run the sport, they have no clue. It's a pity that the tennis is really going down the drain. Every year it's getting worse and worse and worse. There has to be a radical change, and I hope it will be really soon."
Grand Slam supervisors decided not to fine Safin for dropping his pants. He was fined $500 for abusing his racket earlier in the match.
Top women's player Lindsay Davenport, long a paragon of tennis etiquette, agreed with Safin that penalizing him a point was an overreaction.
"I thought it was a little uncalled for," she said. "He definitely wasn't doing it in a fit of anger. They're always telling us to lighten up anyway."
Safin, seeded 20th, played 4½ hours over two days to advance. He finished with 101 winners but also had 117 errors, including 40 in the final set.
Mantilla had 36 winners and 40 errors.
"I tried to make it short," Safin said. "But I couldn't, because he was playing great. But I'm really satisfied that even in five sets I managed to win that match."
Safin reached the fourth round for the fifth time. He has yet to play in a French Open final.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.
Safin lives to fight another day
By Georges Homsi- Roland Garros
Friday, May 28, 2004
After saving a match point in the gathering gloom Thursday evening, Marat Safin (No20) finally scraped past Felix Mantilla 6-4 2-6 6-2 7-6(4) 11-9, after 24 minutes play Friday.
After the dark finally closed in, interrupting the match on Court One at 7-7 in the fifth, neither Marat Safin nor Felix Mantilla can have slept easily on Thursday night. Mantilla must have replayed that match point (at 6-5 in the fifth set) in his head a few hundred times, while Safin was left mulling over the reasons why he missed out on four points for a 5-1 lead in the final set.
Court No1 was heaving as the two returned to the scene of their classic stalemate. Both knew that a few errors would now cost them the match, and admirably cut them down to a minimum when play restarted.
The games went with serve until 10-9 Safin, when Mantilla finally cracked. A double fault, a wayward backhand and an overextended lob, and suddenly he was match point down. Then, after four hours 39 minutes, he hit another ball long, and it was over. The two marathon men fell into each other’s arms at the net, more out of recognition of last night’s efforts than this afternoon’s, and Safin turned to salute a crowd that had been right behind him on both days.
"Yeah, I wish," said the Russian when told he could have finished the match in three sets. "But I couldn't. I couldn't. I really tried. I tried my best. Tried to make it short, but I couldn't just because he was playing great. I mean, I had to play all the time. I had to go a little bit for too much sometimes."
Safin, who was docked a point in the fith set when he pulled his pants down after winning one of the most unbelievable points of the match, rated the encounter at the top of his "crazy" matches. The big Russian later said he was just trying to make the match fun and entertaining for the fans, but was puzzled by the umpire's decision to hand out the penalty point.
"I don't know. I felt this way," said Safin when asked why he dropped his shorts. "I felt it was a great point for me. I felt like pulling my pants down. What's bad about it?"
A semi finalist in 2002, Safin moves on to the third round tomorrow, where he faces Sébastien Grosjean’s conqueror Potito Starace.
After Interruption, Safin Finishes the Job
NY Times
By CHRISTOPHER CLAREY
Published: May 29, 2004
The big green door swung open at 2:43 p.m. on Friday, and Marat Safin swaggered through it and onto Court 1 as if he were a lumberjack heading back to the forest, with Felix Mantilla shuffling discreetly in his wake.
They had not been gone long. The night before, darkness had stopped the clock on their second-round French Open match at 7-7 in the fifth set. After an evening receiving deep-tissue massages, chugging fluids and fretting over missed opportunities and perceived injustices, they were back to finish it and each other off, however long or little that required.
Such moments are among the oddest, most anachronistic in tennis. Imagine stopping a heavyweight bout after 11 rounds, sending the referees, the announcers and the cut men back to the hotel, then returning for the 12th round the next afternoon.
But until they decide to start playing tennis under the lights at Roland Garros, such moments will keep occurring and will remain irresistible. There could have been as few as 8 points left between the 20th-seeded Safin and the unseeded Mantilla, but the stands were still close to full and crackling with energy.
"Hey, Felix!" a fan yelled in Spanish. "We were here last night. Finish the job!"
Another shouted in French: "Go Marat! Don't drop your chin!"
Actually, the more pressing concern was whether Safin would drop his shorts (more on that later), but Safin, for a change, would turn out to be terribly businesslike. When he is on task, instead of on his own case, Safin, a Russian who is a former United States Open champion, is a force of nature, ripping serves and ground strokes with enough power to rip the racket out of lesser men's hands.
It went to 8-7, to 8-8, to 9-8, to 9-9, then to 10-9 for Safin after another muscular flurry of ground strokes.
Were they settling in? Were they careering toward the record set by Fabrice Santoro and Arnaud Clément here in the first round when Santoro ended up winning their two-day test, 16-14 in the fifth? The answer, provided by Safin, turned out to be no. Safin, whose motivation has flagged this spring after his stirring run to the Australian Open final, soon broke serve to secure a 6-4, 2-6, 6-2, 6-7 (4), 11-9 victory and a place in the third round against the Italian qualifier Potito Starace. Mantilla, a former French Open semifinalist who has dropped to No. 93 in the ranking at age 29, settled for a respectful handshake that turned into an embrace.
But even in victory, Safin was not at peace. He was still stewing over what happened Thursday. With Safin leading by 4-3 in the fifth set and Mantilla serving at 0-15, they had a highlight-reel exchange that ended with Safin sprinting forward to track down a great drop shot and coming up with a better, sharply angled winner. Most players would have celebrated with a pumped fist. A few might have celebrated by falling to the clay and writhing in self-satisfaction. Perhaps only Safin would have celebrated by dropping his shorts.
"It just happened," Safin said.
The crowd cheered him on as he stood there briefly with his underwear on display and his shorts down around his knees. But the chair umpire, Carlos Bernardes, and the ATP Tour supervisor, Mike Morrissey, slapped Safin with a point penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct (he had received a warning for throwing his racket earlier in the match).
Instead of 0-30, it was 15-30, and Mantilla went on to hold his serve and Safin went on to lose his cool. He swore at Bernardes at length in Spanish on the next changeover and maintained the same tone of voice — without the vulgarities — after the match. "Nobody complained," Safin said of the crowd. "Everybody was O.K. It wasn't really bad. I don't understand why. The people, like the chair umpire and the supervisor on the court, they come and they destroy this just to show that they are there. Really, they have no clue about tennis. All of the people who run the sport, they have no clue. It's a pity that the tennis is really going down the drain."
One can only imagine what Safin would have said if he had lost.
The Grand Slam supervisors fined Safin $500 for the racket abuse that earned him his warning, but fined him nothing for the shorts-dropping.
Mantilla sounded far from offended. "I think he did it, but funny, not with a bad intention," he said. | back to top |
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