US OPEN

September 7, 2000

Marat Safin

MODERATOR: Questions for Marat.

MARAT SAFIN: I wasn't right (smiling). Next time don't believe me.

MARAT SAFIN: No, sometimes you don't have to.

MARAT SAFIN: Yeah, but it's only words. Can you believe it? It would be nice, I know, but it's long way. Still two matches, tough opponents, Martin and Johansson, and maybe in the final I don't want to think about this. I have my next match. I'm only in the semifinal. I go match by match. It's better like this.

MARAT SAFIN: Nothing. He wouldn't-couldn't win his serve. That's it. He make the wrong decisions. Maybe he doesn't serve so well. Maybe I return a little bit better. I was more concentrated on his serve because I knew I was very close to lose this set, so I was a hundred percent concentrated, and I was lucky. That's it.

MARAT SAFIN: Nothing. I just found my game. I was afraid against Grosjean. I was very close to go home very fast. I said, "Please, no, don't do this again. Just make your game, win fast and go home." You can be in the five sets, tiebreak. First of all, you lose a lot of years on this game. You can come completely white. Also the confidence is going because if you win two sets, like I was against Grosjean, after you lose other two very easy, you can't find your game. It also is not nice and not good for your game. I decide to play my game as fast as I can.

MARAT SAFIN: I think you have to be afraid, otherwise you going to the court, you think that you have to win. These other guys, they're playing great tennis, like Kiefer. If you go to the court and you are not afraid, he can beat you very easy because he's playing great tennis. You're going there, you know, "I'm going to beat this guy very easy." I was almost could be three-sets-to-Love very easy, so you have to be afraid - a little bit, not too much. A little bit, yes, but before the match. It give you a little bit of concentration. You have to move a lot, otherwise if you are a hundred percent sure that you going to win, you don't move at all. Then the problems coming, like against Grosjean. I came, I win two sets. I don't know where I've been the other two. I was in the locker room, I think.

MARAT SAFIN: Yeah, but sometimes is good, sometimes no. But normally, it doesn't work. You have to be afraid every time you going to the court. It gives you, you know, motivation, adrenaline is going to your body. Otherwise you go to the court like to the beach.

MARAT SAFIN: Not the first one, not the second one. Just semifinal. I'm in the way to be in the final. I don't think about. Semifinal is not enough, definitely. It's never enough, believe me.

MARAT SAFIN: It doesn't matter. Both, they are playing great tennis, if they pass four rounds each one. Martin was match point down. He win. He can play. He very talented guy. He can play till 12:00 in the morning. I can't do it. He's a big fighter, has a good serve. It's difficult to play against him. Thomas, he's in a good shape. He couldn't do it during all the year. He was playing very bad because he finished the year like 115, now he's 70. So he's coming back with his confidence. He going to give everything to be in the final, to get his old ranking, to be in the Top 20. But with Thomas, at least we can play with the baseline. Then you see if you can beat him or not. But with Todd, it's a lot of headache because he's a big serve, no rhythm at all. He plays very fast, very good volley. It's a different game, which I don't like. I prefer to play with Thomas. It's my game. It's more similar to me.

MARAT SAFIN: If you can pay all my fines, it's okay. I can broke many. You know how much I paid already this year?

MARAT SAFIN: Close to probably was 250 in Australia, close to $7,000, or even 10. Guys, for $10,000, you know what I can do? You don't want to know what I can do with $10,000.

MARAT SAFIN: You going to go out to Head to tell them, no? 35, 36.

MARAT SAFIN: Last time? Last week against Guardiola. I forgot about this already. I'm a new man.

MARAT SAFIN: If I would be a coach, I will come down to the court and I would hit with the racquet definitely, to be so clever. But actually, what you going to do?

MARAT SAFIN: But I thought he was going to the net actually. If he's going to the net, I was hundred percent that he was on the net. So if I pass with the lob, there's no chance. I decided I make the right decision, definitely, to play between the legs. You know how many words I said to myself that I was right?

MARAT SAFIN: Yeah, but I was just trying to fight. I didn't want to go for the best shot of the day. I was going for everything. At least he knows that I'm going to fight until the end, otherwise he can get his confidence back, and somehow he can make a break. So I don't want to play five sets anymore. I was going for everything. I was running everywhere. I was lucky that I catch this ball. The second shot, I think the sun, the ball was in the sun, so is difficult, he couldn't smash it. Also from this side, we couldn't serve very well because the last set, last set and a half, we had sun over there. You serve and you still have sun everywhere in the point. So it was difficult to play there.

MARAT SAFIN: No, but I can hear one guy, I don't know what he was explaining to someone. I don't know, but he was completely -- I could hear it from other side of the court. I don't know. I think he enjoyed a lot our game at least.

MARAT SAFIN: Sasha, he's sitting there. Ask him if he's the coach. He's not my coach.

MARAT SAFIN: No, it was -- I had two coaches only. Three coaches in my life. I have my mother. The coach before I had for six years. I had Andrei Chesnokov. Now I don't have anybody. Just him, because he has nothing to do in Russia (laughter).

MARAT SAFIN: Yeah, she was. I don't know until what age she was with my mother.

MARAT SAFIN: Until seven?

MARAT SAFIN: Yeah, I know. From seven, because normally, the kids, they start to play from six, seven. I think she was like four years with my mother. So the technique, she put everything, she gave the base, you know. After she left to other coach who could travel with her to the tournaments because my mother, she has my small sister also. She could not travel, so it was a little bit difficult. Elena, she left. I think it's right decision. I was tired of fighting with my mother, with my parents, because in all the families is the same. You fight with your mother, you fight with your father. So they decide to send me to Spain. But for this I thank very much to my mother that she put me in the right way to play tennis, otherwise I could be I don't know who, but definitely not great sportsman.

MARAT SAFIN: Yeah, of course. Play the same times.

MARAT SAFIN: Sometimes. She was bad (laughter).

MARAT SAFIN: "Well done. Well done, kid. Do it again."

MARAT SAFIN: I'm one year older and more experience, I think. I'm getting older. You see my hair is already white. No, just a little bit more of experience so at least sometimes I know what I have to do to get out from this situation. That's it. Experience.

MARAT SAFIN: What do you mean, with the long matches?

MARAT SAFIN: Sometimes I'm trying to push myself because I can play one set, and the next set I don't know what I'm doing. I need to push myself because otherwise I'm completely stopped on the court, I'm blocked. At least I'm trying to push me to move, to get angry, to get into the game. That's it. Five sets, that's because I get angry in five-set matches. I'm playing and I'm stopping. I'm playing, I don't know what I'm doing. These matches, I'm trying to push myself, I'm trying to hit racquet, to get angry, to get back into the match. But when I'm playing good, I don't have to do this.

MARAT SAFIN: But he's I think the same manager, that guy in the last row, the same manager. I don't know. I think he's the same style, more or less, the same parents. I think Goran, he was like this since the beginning. He didn't become crazy when he was on ATP. He was already like this when he was young, the same like me, yes. Yes, I was like this already. I think it's a question of parents. Normally the father, if he's a big fighter, normally you become crazy. You smash racquets, you know, you get crazy on the court like your parents.

MARAT SAFIN: No, my father, he was like this. He was - how you say - when he play football, he get angry with all other players. Sometimes he hits Volkov on the head when they're playing together. I think it's coming from the father.

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