Tennis 101

It was just like old times: Marat Safin reached up into the honey-colored light and threw down thunder, playing tennis like he meant it (something that ceased to be a Safin trademark some time ago). Of course, he also berated himself, bounced his racket, examined the Slazengers the kids threw him like a peevish jewelry appraiser, often rejecting one or two before deigning to serve with an identical one.

It was vintage Safin in unfamiliar territory - the Wimbledon quarters. At 28, he he'd cracked the fourth round at the tournament just once (way back in 2001, he made the quarters). This tournament has consistently bedeviled him, which may be the only time the word "consistency" comes up in a conversation about our favorite Alpinist. But this evening he's into the semifinals, after an artful deconstruction of Feliciano Lopez in four sets. And this, right on the heels of one of the most alarming- and humiliating - episodes in his career: falling so low in the rankings that, about a month ago, he played the qualifying tournament for Hamburg.

One thing about Safin: he always makes it interesting.

So it was in today's match with Lopez, which was delayed by rain for a few hours shortly after Lopez won the first set. That was long enough for Safin to moderate, if not exactly banish, the yips. As he said in his presser, "I was really nervous in the beginning because he's uncomfortable for me. He's serving well. Chip and charging. So you never now what to expect the next point."

Having decided that I had no particular desire to watch the ritual killing (of Mario Ancic) on Centre Court, I decided to watch Safin and F-Lo instead. I'm not sure what it says about Safin that he felt so. . . threatened . . . by F-Lo, because I share the view that while he sure cuts a handsome figure on the court, he has trouble keeping the forehand between the lines and isn't blessed with the steeliest of minds. But then, neither is Safin. One of the more appealing aspects of the match-up is that there was something very Tennis 101 about it.

I could just imagine Hernan Gumy advising Safin: Marat, just get the serve back and hit every ball to his forehand until it cracks (advice which, if rendered, was merrily ignored by Safin).

And I could just hear Galo Blanco and Albert Costa telling F-Lo: Feli, just keep the ball in the court, move him around, and wait for his head to explode!

Simple, huh?

After an afternoon of showers, the clouds were breaking up, the air smelled fresh, and a mellow golden light fell across Court 1 when the match resumed. And for a spell, it seemed like we were watching an old Wimbledon highlight reel. Safin was serving and volleying on every point - and doing so with such commanding presence and finality that for long periods it didn't seem like he did any running at all. You know how that works. Ace!  Service winner.  Service return winner (oh-oh 30-15!)!  Big first serve, followed by two strides toward the net and a volley winner. Ace. Game, Safin.

Lopez doesn't have the Big Game or Big Game Presence of Safin; he's designed to play the scrambling, scampering daredevil - Emilio Sanchez, v. 2.3, if you will. But unlike Sanchez, F-Lo likes to attack and volley, and he's good at it. What he's not good at, though, is keeping the ball in play long enough to set himself up for adequately high-percentage volleying opportunities, nor at making passing shots when the tables are turned. Safin won a lot of points attacking Lopez, especially on the backhand side. And oddly, although Lopez's conversion rate on forehands was awful, Safin insisted on engaging the lefty in long, cross-court rallies - Safin's forehand to Lopez's backhand, which he hits only with slice. I guess Safin was just sending the message: Nah, nah, na-nah-na, you can't hurt me, you can't hurt me!

Safin broke Lopez in the sixth game of the first set, but serving at 4-2 he went limp and defensive. He abandoned the serve and volley, although struggling to put his first serve in made that a reasonable decision. F-Lo broke right back, and Safin nicely segued to his "poor me", or, "life is tough than you die 0-34 against Roger Federer" mode. Between points, he wandered around aimlessly, like some twelve-year old juvenile delinquent who's finally grown bored hurling rocks at the windows of the abandoned warehouse. Those familiar stick legs that proved quite useful chasing down all those Feliciano Lopez slices and volleys suddenly looked a bit wobbly. And we were treated to the usual bouts of verbal self-bashing, string-punching, and racket bouncing.

To his credit, though, Safin survived everything Lopez threw at him, as well as everything he threw at himself. He broke Lopez with a fine backhand slice approach shot that teased out one of Lopez's numerous slice-backhand errors to take the second set, 7-5. He then kept control of the match. Appropriate to the way the men were playing, there were no breaks in the third set, and Safin played a terrific tiebreaker (7-1) to end it.

Safin, most of you know, has a penchant for frankness - not just garden variety, everyday honesty, but a level of bluntness that might make you groan, or jump up and shout, Marat! Are you really sure you want to be telling us this stuff? Take Safin's response when he was asked if he can beat Roger Federer. He gave his interrogator one of those baleful, now-just-hold-on looks and said:

"You winning four matches and now you're starting to challenge the Federer? I don't think ?? I'm playing semifinals, but that doesn't mean that I have a chance there, because the guy has won how many times already here? I mean, five, six times already, and he's on the way to win his seventh title (insert from above: Are you really sure you want to be telling us this stuff?).

" It's my first semifinal, so levels are a little bit different. To beat Federer you need to be Nadal and run around like a rabbit and hit winners from all over the place" As if he suddenly became aware of what he was saying, he added." But, yes, why not? It's another chance for me.

"But I think it's just a little bit too difficult . . . for me to beat him."

Well, that settles it. Y'all can now spend a comfortable Friday afternoon watching a poker tournament or clogging competition.

But this being Safin, a part of me believes that the scenario he described might give him his best - if still paltry -  chance to accomplish the unthinkable. The last thing that a guy as conflicted and prey to self-doubt as Safin needs is the kind of pressure that comes with feeling like he ought to be in the Wimbledon final, the self-imposed pressure that comes from really wanting to win Wimbledon and being willing to risk everything to see the job through.

Safin is a free spirit, and the best explanation for the wild fluctuations of his career is that he has a aversion to feeling pressure. It's anathema. It's strange and scary. Hail,  pressure feels a lot like - Ohmigod!. . . responsibility! Talk about something more terrifying than the Federer forehand. . .

I asked the first question in the presser: A lot of people had given you up for dead not long ago.  Here you are in the semis.  Tell us a little bit about how you turned it around.

He replied: "Well, I also start to think that I lost it completely because the way I played for past year.  I didn't really - nothing worked until I changed the coach, I tried to do something different, you know, I didn't have any expectations.

And, well, also the beginning of this year nothing really came up. You know, I've been losing first rounds left and right.  I was really desperate and I didn't know what to do. Then all of a sudden just out of nowhere I started to play better on the clay court season and the confidence started to come.  I had bad draws throughout the clay court season.  I played against Ferrer, I played against Davydenko in the French Open. But the way I started to play, I started to feel much better on the court, and just started to get much more comfortable on court. That's the only thing.

Later, he would add: "Also I lost so many matches that I've been very close to winning, and then just something slipped away.  That's it, the momentum is gone and you lose the confidence. You are finding yourself 79, 80 in the world.  I was 95 even this year and I had to play quallies in Hamburg.  This is really touch the bottom, to start to play quallies in the tournaments.  This is really too much. But I made the choice. Now people, they thought what am I doing?  Don't play this way.  But I went there.  I qualified. I got paid for this. I guess this tournament is payoff for the Hamburg quallies.  It's worth it."

A little later, someone else got Safin going by asking how much of his "happiness" had to do with winnning. He replied:

"When I won the Australian Open (2005)  it was a big relief.  I wasn't happy.  I was just, Oh, my God, thanks God I won the second title, because I lost already twice the Australian Open.  I needed already the second Grand Slam. I was under so much pressure in the final that I couldn't even walk straight.  It was a little bit too much, you know, too much of a pressure and you don't really can enjoy it while you're playing.  Sometime it's a suffering.

Of course, when you're playing great everything, it's unbelievable. 20 years old, nobody expects anything from you and you're beating Sampras in the final of New York. It's a different story. But then afterwards, like five years later, people are talking around what's gonna happen? He doesn't win a Grand Slam. What's happening to him? So for me it was a big relief.

Here I'm happy because it's also big relief for me that I'm 75 in the world and now I'm top 50, so I'm happy.  But I'm climbing back.  I want to climb back to the top 20.  That's my goal right now. But to be happy that I'll be smiling for the rest of this season?  I don't think so. I have lot of work to do."

That work continues with a pretty big task on Friday. But hey, how lucky is Safin to be here in the first place? I asked him if it struck him as ironic that this present resurgence took place at the major where he had performed most listlessly, and he answered:

"Yeah, it happens. S* happens."

For a guy like Marat, that's a pretty handy all around explanation for everything.