Saturday Rendezvous, 12.27

Hi all. I''m sorry to be a little late with today's OT post; for some bizarre reason, Typepad doesn't know who I am any more, unless I access it using the one browser that has "issues" when using it to compose a post.

We're continuing today with more "Moments of 2008". Following on from yesterday's "moment" (Novak Djokovic winning the Australian Open), it seems appropriate to highlight the biggest achievement in 2008 of the man who shocked Djokovic in straight sets in the second round at Wimbledon. Besides, in the present climate it's not often that I have a cast-iron excuse to post a picture (or two) of Marat Safin here. The picture above shows him celebrating after his quarterfinal win over Feliciano Lopez. Maratski in a Wimbledon semifinal - who on earth would have been crazy enough to bet on that at the beginning of the fortnight?

As it happens, Safin and Djokovic are the last two men to defeat Roger Federer at the Australian Open - both achieving this in a semifinal, and both going on to win the title. Since Safin won his Australian Open title in 2005, the largest number of consecutive match wins he had been able to string together was four - in Halle in June 2005, in Washington in July 2006, in Moscow in October of 2006, and in Hamburg in May 2008, on clay. In this last tournament, he was forced to win two qualifying rounds in order to secure a spot in the main draw. Before then, he'd been fortunate enough to avoid qualifying rounds.

Apart from his run in Hamburg, Safin didn't win more than two consecutive matches between March 2007 and June 2008, suffering a series of first-round exits. Probably his biggest personal achievement since winning the Australian Open had been helping to carry Russia to a Davis Cup win at home in 2006, where he emerged a winner in the doubles and in the deciding singles rubber (is José Acasuso the unluckiest man ever to grace  Argentina's Davis Cup Squad?).

Then came Wimbledon 2008 - five matches in a row, on the most unlikely surface of them all, in his own estimation. It required five-time defending champion Roger Federer to knock him out of the draw.

I was fortunate enough to see Safin defeat Stan Wawrinka in the fourth round during his Wimbledon run this year, and took the second of today's two pictures then (I didn't take the main picture). I have the feeling that even if the image had come out as a featureless silhouette, its subject would be instantly identifiable.

Enjoy the rest of your day.

-- Rosangel Valenti