Big day, Tribe: Lindsay, the brother-sister team of Marat and Dinara, Rafael, all gone. Call it bloody Wednesday - or the day the tournament recovered from the loss of Andre Agassi and decided it really was time to move on. I'll be posting later tonight, from home, on the Nadal/Youzhny match (pressers yet to come), most of which I watched with good buddy Chris Clarey of The International Herald Tribune and the New York Times.
Meanwhile, here's yet another chapter from Marat Safin's Book of Hours, which I think some of you may find relevant to our ongoing discussion here at TW about whether Big Time tennis has more to do with the external appendages (the arm, and how reliably it executes technical and strategic mandates) or the internal organs (the heart and guts and how they respond to the challenge of competition):
Q. Can you talk about, when you go out to compete, how much of how you perform is mental, how you're thinking, where your head is. Or, is it a matter of training and how you've been doing and how you wake up that day?
MARAT SAFIN: No, is just not like that. We already in a ?? at a high performance. Professionals, we basically dedicate ourselves, all our lives, to become what we are right now. So everything, it becomes mental after a while. Once you become pro and you become a pretty good pro, it just is not anymore the technique. It's not anymore the serve. It's not anymore the forehand, backhand, or serve and volley, something like that. It's just a mental thing to keep yourself cool sometimes, and sometimes to push yourself to risk it at important moments, or try to stay back and make the right decisions at the right moment.
Because everybody can play backhand and forehand. There's no problem. I think who is tougher mentally is winning basically. So this is just ?? it's already ?? who is better mentally prepared is basically top 10 players. It's unbelievable. They just focused throughout the match. No ups and downs. They know exactly what to do in important moments. That's why it makes such a big difference. Because tennis, everybody has.
Safin, who invariably is most articulate and soulful when he loses, also had some interesting things to say about his fellow Russians, as well as his sister Dinara. Among other things, he alluded to some advice he gave Dinara that apparently helped her come knocking at the door of the Top 10. A reporter, citing Dinara's frank admission that in classic kid sister fashion, she once was a racquet breaker par excellence, asked Marat if he had helped her "calm down." He replied:
Well, not exactly. She just put it in a different way. But I had some issues with her that doesn't ?? I'm not gonna go into details. But some things I didn't really like, and I really told her, you know, because it's just ?? it's unacceptable from her side to do some things on the court what she was doing before. Right now, she stopped doing that, looks like that. Look at her right now. She was top 50, 50, 60, 40, 30, jumping all around. Right now, she's basically cracking top 10. So it really worked. So it was pretty good advice, I guess (smiling).
I assume the pep talk Marat provided had to do with learning to fight, and to cease looking like she had just traveled 10 miles of bad emotional road each time she whacked a forehand into the windscreen.
Ever notice that nobody, but nobody, is better at playing the pot who called the kettle black than a big brother? This, in my sweeping and profund grasp of human psychology, is the reason most women (at least those who have older brothers) are so good (or is it bad?) at dealing with the knuckleheads they choose to date or marry, and, come to think of it, it may even by why they choose them: Please God, give me a good,old-fashioned know-it-all, do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do, it's my world kind of guy. . . and bingo, God dispatches Darwin to find them the Missing Link.
The follow up question was astute: "Is it advice you would follow for yourself?"
No, when you're 26, it's difficult to change. You can't teach the old dog to sit, huh?
Coy much, big guy? Remind us when to chime, in unison, "Oh. Of course. How silly of us to ask! Meanwhile, we'll all just tread water until you decide to break our hearts again. . ."
It's a pity the big lug is out, though, isn't it?
Check out the transcripts; they're a good read. Jet Boy is due in the press room at 7:45, so talk amongst yourselves while I go take care of some business, okay?**
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