With a swathe of unpredictable groundstrokes, and a tirade of predictable rants, tennis’ ultimate enigma, Marat Safin, exited Rod Laver Arena for the final time.
In truth, Marat Safin’s Australian Open swansong was a sombre affair, beaten on the night by a master in full flight. At the scene of his crowning achievement, Safin failed to ignite.
Yet despite the magnitude of his task, and in lieu of his poor recent form, it was only with his final erratic forehand that hope finally diminished. That was Marat Safin. Anything was, quite literally, possible.
He will be recorded in history as having captured two Grand Slam titles and reached the position of World Number One. Yet it is not this that will be remembered and revered, rather it will be his charismatic volatility.
I would reservedly suggest that the upside of this erratic brilliance took Marat to a place few players cared to even inquire about. Put simply, when he was ‘on’, he didn’t lose.
He refused to be constricted by the dimensions of his surroundings and neglected to respect the skill of his opponents.
Take his extraordinary list of Australian Open wins as proof.
In a decade of appearances, Marat defeated six former World Number Ones, the names of which included contemporary greats Sampras, Agassi and, perhaps most famously, Roger Federer.
It is that victory, over arguably the game’s finest ever player, that defined Safin’s brilliance. Over five utterly compelling sets, Federer simply had no answer.
For an all too brief moment, Safin took tennis somewhere entirely different. Will anyone return there? Who knows.
It should frustrate and confuse, even anger, the tennis world that such brilliance is so infrequently displayed.
Yet it doesn’t.
Marat, the quiet and calculated genius just wouldn’t be right. The world has enough conservatives, we don’t need any more. So, as a lover of sport and all its random beauty, Safin’s farewell comes as a moment of great sadness.
The tennis world has lost its one true mysteries
So now we wait, as we do for another glimpse of the promise land so extraordinarily displayed on that famous Melbourne night, for the next Marat Safin.
It may come, it may not. Either way, Marat was here, and in some small way, will never truly leave.
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