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PACIFIC LIFE OPEN

March 12, 2006

Marat Safin

INDIAN WELLS, CALIFORNIA

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.
Q. Marat, what's it like to sort of be involved in a match like that again after so long, a really intense match with a big player to come through and win?
MARAT SAFIN: In a way, it's nice. But in a way, it's really difficult to be there, and see the same tennis you've been playing from just the one year ago. Still nervous, you still want to go back, you don't want to really, in a way you're putting a lot of pressure on yourself. And, well, you try to play your best tennis, but, you know, it's kind of difficult really to be patient, what are you doing there. It's still a little bit missing, but a little bit of a -- it's still missing this feeling, what are you doing on the court.
And for the moment, you don't know really know what to do - go to the net, stay on the back, a lot of -- too many options. You don't know which one to pick.
Q. Still all considering you've done very well, in Dubai and here so far?
MARAT SAFIN: Well, of course. I'm really happy the way I'm playing, you know. I've been playing only one month and a half, playing tennis, starting slowly with very good result, when you get back, you start to get too ambitious.
Q. What does a win like this do for you confidence?
MARAT SAFIN: You never know. You're gonna win today, you can lose tomorrow. It's kind of, with this kind of matches, they're supposed to give you confidence. It's supposed to be the right thing to do when you win them, just a lot things you have to work on, to hit a lot of balls, win a lot around -- you need to still feeling good, these kind of things make me happy.
Q. No pain, no difficulty in movement?
MARAT SAFIN: Well, of course I still have pain, still feeling my knee. That it's. It gets very charged at the end of the match. You can still feel a little bit sore, especially after the match when you start to walk and the knee start coming down and starting to be a little bit cold outside, then the problems are coming. So I figure I'm going back into the treatment.
Q. You get ice and so forth?
MARAT SAFIN: Yeah, ice. I have to do some ultrasound. I try to calm it down, but it's a little bit fine.
Q. I think you said before, earlier, I wasn't here, that the doctors told you, you must not be operated on --
MARAT SAFIN: Yeah.
Q. -- there was a way to bring this back through?
MARAT SAFIN: Well, if you -- well, if you get operated, something can go wrong and you can just say bye-bye to tennis, because it's never sure what's going on on the surgery. And that's what happened to a lot of cycle players in Europe. They get operated, some things, it's not the mistake of the doctor. It's just some surgeries, they just don't go the right way. It's exactly the same at the matches. They're playing good and some moment you just -- it doesn't go your way.
Especially when the tendon and the ligaments, you make a small mistake or just your body doesn't react the way it should react, and basically it is over.
Q. So there was an alternate method, then, for you?
MARAT SAFIN: Yes, that's what they told me. Try to do physiotherapy and take it easy, six months off, and just give it at least a chance to come back. If it's surgery, it's like flip a coin. Give yourself a chance, recovery this way, and see how it's gonna happen. Then supposedly it's -- well, it's feeling okay, and they, of course, told me it's gonna be pain until the end of my life. So it's just -- it got chronic, all these things, and I've been a lot of complications because I've been playing -- I got injured here and I wasn't playing till Wimbledon. And then I got worse, worse, and worse, and at the end, I was playing with painkillers and anesthetic filtration. So I destroyed it a little bit and I wont' get better than it is.
Q. Are there surfaces where it's more dangerous than others?
MARAT SAFIN: Well, here it's a little bit too sticky. It's cold. That's why it's sticky. That's why all the stops, and it just kind of -- it hurts more here than when it's -- when it's fast.
Q. Are you going to try to avoid playing too much on hard?
MARAT SAFIN: No. Just try to -- try to play because, if you start to choose the tournaments, we play less tournaments, not to play there, not to go there, then it's a mess. Then you lose complete confidence and you have to be careful on the court, and then basically it's the end.
Q. Is it difficult then, Marat, to be kind of too ambitious and to look too far a head at what you want to achieve in the game, because you have to take it really on a match-by-match basis?
MARAT SAFIN: That's the situation I am right now, just cannot -- I cannot ask for too much myself. So automatically it's coming, because the players -- the players they want to get better and better and better, and they want to improve the ranking and they want to make semifinals, the finals. They don't want to care about health.
But in my opinion, well, I have to think a little bit more about my knee, but still in a match, the player is coming out.
Q. Would you say that tennis at the moment, the way it is, there's a suggestion that the court surfaces are slower, balls are heavier, two players perhaps are playing too much, I mean, you are almost -- the problem of tennis at the moment, and there's going to be more of it, do you think unless something is done with the game, unless something changes, that surfaces change, the balls change, the schedule changes --
MARAT SAFIN: Not the surfaces, not the balls, it's not the players, it's nothing to do with the fact that what you're doing on a court. It's just the schedule is so tight. I mean, you cannot ask the player to be on a tour for ten years without even having a rest for one month. We don't have a rest at all, so no wonder players are injured for three years, Thomas Johansson injured two years, me, I've been injured so many times that out of eight years of my career, I've been injured four years.
So it's like then the people, they don't really realize. They want to squeeze the maximum from the players. They still complaining, the players don't do these things they want to. They don't behave the way they should behave on the court. There's always complaints about the players.
It's not about the players. We're doing our best. I mean, we're playing 55,000 tournaments a year and the people, they want more and more and more, and we don't get anything back. They cancel the bonuses in 2001. So it's like they're still pushing us, still. So the only thing is making the season a little bit shorter. We are not asking for anything else.
Okay. We'll -- it will be here. I mean, we're coming to Indian Wells; we're coming to Miami; come from Dubai, then we have to go back to Europe. We have a tough schedule in Europe. Then we go to Wimbledon. From Wimbledon, we fly to Gstaad, then we have to go to Asia, then we have to back to Europe, back to Asia. If you're in the finals of Davis Cup, you're finishing basically in the middle of December. You have no time for anything because the Australian Open is starting in three weeks and the people don't complain.
No, know why people are withdrawing from the Master's Cup. I mean you have to be blind and completely out of your mind to even to expect all the players to come there. How many withdrawals from the Master's Cup? I don't know what they think the people are satisfied that come there two days and no people are watching at all.
Q. Then you get Rotterdam where you had 14 players pulled out for certain reasons?
MARAT SAFIN: Of course. And they're unhappy. The players don't, they don't give enough. Well, I can assure you that we give more than we can. And everybody wants to play and everybody loves the game because it's the only thing we can do, that we know to do, and we want to make the tennis better. We want to make more attractive. We want to make so the people and the kids will come more and spend the time with the players, but it's impossible.
Q. Did you ever consider having a players union?
MARAT SAFIN: Well, just whatever it takes, but it's supposedly never happens. And Agassi and some people have been trying for many years, since in the beginning of the '90s. Then we had this incredible meeting three years ago and nothing has been done. There's only ideas, ideas, ideas. So what we can expect? I mean, I'm just wondering, we have a new guy from Walt Disney, so let's see if we can make a miracle out of it.
Let's -- everything is -- last thing you can have is hope, because this way it cannot continue because it's just -- it's killing the players. It's killing the -- it's killing the game, unfortunately, and there have to be -- because the tournaments basically are fighting against the players all the time. The grand slams are fighting and the players and everybody is fighting, fighting against the players. So what do the players get? No bonuses, we still have the same prize money from '95, so...
Basically some tournaments you have to come. If you're coming with your crew, you have to make at least final to cover your expenses. From my opinion, it's like $350,000 tournaments. It's really, to pay my -- to pay the ticket to my masseuse, to my coach, the salary, the food, with everything it's just -- I'm just -- I have to get into final.
Q. Andre was pretty angry. He came here, and there was -- he complained about the rain, you know, him possibly getting injured or maybe end of his career, falling down on court. Does it make you nervous when you get out and, consider your problem with the knee, that maybe rain can also end your career or something like that?
MARAT SAFIN: Well, there are rules, actually there is a rule, for example, if you are -- if one of the players, they want to stop, another one has to -- has to stop also. It just -- it cannot be if one person says no. I think it's like this in the book, and he has all the rights to say no, I'm not playing in these conditions. And, of course, you have to respect more Andre because he's the one you saw -- how many people are watching it? Now, for example, there is nobody in the stands. Everybody left, but for Agassi everybody was full.
And, I mean, the guy says, "I don't want to play. Sorry," I have to give him a little bit of credit and stop the match, in my opinion, because, I mean, the guy did a lot for tennis and you have to be a little bit -- let it go.
Q. Bjorn Borg recently said he was planning to sell his Wimbledon trophies. What's your response to that, your thoughts?
MARAT SAFIN: Everybody does what in his life, whatever he wants. Don't want nobody to judge him at all.

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