NASDAQ-100 OPEN
Date: 2005-03-25

NASDAQ-100 OPEN

March 25, 2005

Marat Safin
MIAMI, FLORIDA
The Moderator Questions, please.

Question How tough was that?
Marat Safin It's much tougher when you're not feeling well. I was little bit out of confidence. Everything is becoming more difficult. It's difficult to go without the confidence especially first round, especially against Labadze. He's tough player. He's lefty. So it was -- he almost got me.

Question You say you're not feeling well. Physically?
Marat Safin No, physically I been working really hard. I had 10 days of fitness training. I'm very fit. I found myself a little bit heavy because I was doing a lot of exercises one week ago, like all one week.

Question After Indian Wells?
Marat Safin Yeah, yeah. I working really hard. Was little bit heavy, but it was normal. Also just a little bit out of confidence.

Question So soon after the Australian Open you're out of confidence?
Marat Safin It's two months passed. I didn't play for two weeks, I had a bad loss in Dubai, then Davis Cup in Moscow that I won. But then also last week I played a terrible match against Dent. But I have to admit that really, during all my career, I never done well in Indian Wells or here. So it's a little bit normal. Don't really put myself under a lot of pressure. There are some tournaments that you don't do well no matter how tough you train, no matter how much you prepare. It's not my month. So this is why I'm just trying to break through.

Question After Australia did you expect to have more confidence? Was there always going to be a bit of an anticlimax?
Marat Safin Of course, there is always downhill. I'm not like Roger; he's way too high, you know. He has all the skills. Even when he is not playing well, he has enough feeling, enough talent to be able to, you know, like not to show it. Me, when I'm not playing well, I just suffer little bit more and my game suffers because my game is basically -- most of the time it's a risk, I'm taking a risk. When you're not in shape, you miss a lot.

Question Winning the Australian Open, then, hasn't improved your confidence?
Marat Safin It's improved in a way. Put less pressure on myself. But also you want to do well, so well after the Australian Open because you want to put yourself and try to make the year, you know -- try to be stable. So it's kind of difficult, you know. Like, because you want to do extra well. So you don't have a pressure, but at the same time you have a pressure because you want to just maintain the same level of tennis that you played in Australian Open. But for some reason, better for me to forget about what I did in Australian Open and try and concentrate and try to play match by match and take each tournament at a time, and not to really think about the way I'm playing, how many matches I won, how many matches I lost. Just try to, no matter how bad I'm playing, just try to win, give your best and whatever comes, comes.

Question But do you think about those things?
Marat Safin Of course I do. Of course. Because I am, in a way, I'm perfectionist. It's really difficult for me, you know, to admit or to accept that I'm not playing really well.

Question Do you lose patience? Were there times tonight you lost patience?
Marat Safin I was little bit upset. I was little bit upset with myself. I was not happy with the way I was hitting the ball because I had my chances, I couldn't take them, so I was getting little bit frustrated because I wanted to win too badly. Because really, it was very important match for me to win, because always the first match, especially in the big tournaments, is always tough. And when you have the opportunities, not like five sets where you can go away from the match and come back, here you have to take your chances and that's it. Because it can be really fast. I had my chances. I missed them. He was there, you know. In the tiebreak he had a chance.

Question Which defeat hurt more - Kiefer in Dubai or Dent last week?
Marat Safin Both. I think more Dent because to me it's like I was very close to play well, you know. Just if -- he's uncomfortable tennis player. Of course he's serving well. He's playing without any rhythm. I had my 4-All and Love-40. I felt that for some reason, just turned the other way around and I couldn't find myself.

Question If you would have lost out on this one --
Marat Safin That's a really bad one. This would be really bad one.

Question If you would have lost this, do you think you would have reacted in the same way that he did?
Marat Safin I'll be full of frustration, I guess. I would be really pissed at myself, you know, because I been working really hard, and it would be a waste of opportunity and it would be a waste of month, basically.

Question Are people premature when they talk about Safin and Federer, now we've got a great rivalry?
Marat Safin A little bit. Well, thanks a lot to compare me to him, but it's still little bit what we are talking about, two different kind of players. In a way we're different, we have different priorities, and it's little bit difficult, you know, to compare us together, the way we are, because we have completely different mentality, we have completely different the way of thinking. I admire him, what he is doing and how he is doing.

Question Do you ever take your mind back to that night in Melbourne?
Marat Safin Of course, because I played a great match.

Question It was one of the great ones?
Marat Safin You want to go back and you want to try to remember the things, the way I was playing, and try to find your game and try to go back and see what I was doing right, what I'm not doing right now. For some reason I am doing everything exactly the same, but it doesn't go exactly the same way.

Question Is part of that down to the level of opponent, the fact that you raised your game so much because you were playing Roger?
Marat Safin Could be. Could be. But also it's, like I said, it's a first round. First rounds are always tough because new courts, new balls, he's much -- it's humid here so the balls are not playing so fast like in Indian Wells. In Indian Wells, was playing way too much. It's difficult. You have to adapt yourself. You're playing against a lefty. I played against him once only in my life. It's kind of also like a derby, he's Georgian, I'm Russian - Soviet Union, all these things make you think, put you under pressure.

Question He's a friend?
Marat Safin Yeah. I know him since we were 10. So it's kind of we grew up together. He beat me once in European Championship under 16.

Question It's probably a bit silly asking this question because you won the US Open, but do you feel comfortable in America?
Marat Safin In America?

Question Yes.
Marat Safin For some reason, I didn't really do well after that win. Well, I played once in semifinal in 2001. But since then, it's been many years that I didn't do anything special up here.

Question Goran never liked coming here very much.
Marat Safin There's some tournaments, like I said, there's some tournaments you can't -- no matter how you prepare, just doesn't work for some reason, doesn't go your way. So you have to accept it. But of course you want to break it, and you try. You try to do something different, you try to work hard, you try to play, practice harder, stronger, then less. Then you do something else, just not to think about it. So I've been doing for past seven years, I tried everything.

Question Different hotels?
Marat Safin Different hotels. I tried to practice more, less. Tried not to practice, tried to stay in the courts, you know, as much as you can, tried to focus on the tennis. So it's like no matter what I tried, it doesn't work.

Question What's this year's approach?
Marat Safin Everybody's here, you know. Everybody - fitness trainer, masseur, coach, girlfriend, mother, sister, everybody, you know. Try to be a perfect family man and try to be as much into tennis as I can be.

Question Big round dinner tables?
Marat Safin Yeah, busy table, everybody on my shoulders. No, because you need the support. I need the support to, you know -- people to carry you and to, you know, to like be with you. Why not?

Question Are there any significant changes Peter has made?
Marat Safin Try to be a little bit more positive on the court, try to, yeah, try to be more positive. Not to eat yourself from inside. No matter how bad you're playing, keep on going, keep on going, keep on going, if it doesn't go your way, not to get frustrated. But I am, I am going crazy. I cannot change myself because I hate to lose. It drives me mad. He's trying to make me be calm and try to be reasonable, try to be rational on the court.

Question Is that a conversation you've had since Indian Wells? Is that in the last week or so?
Marat Safin Yeah, just two cords in one racquet just last week. It's a kind of frustration that in a way is necessary, but it has to wait until locker room, and I went little bit nuts on the court also because I couldn't deal with the way I was playing. Was a little bit too frustrating for me.

Question You were supposed to come in and talk to the press the other day. We understand you didn't want to do that?
Marat Safin Nothing against you guys. I had really personal reason, I explained to the guy, I was not really in a mood to share. But I had really serious, private reasons that I couldn't do it, so I guess it's better for you guys to have a conversation when I am not in the mood, just in a positive way.

Question You wouldn't have been in a very good conversation that day?
Marat Safin This is why I prevented this. I guess I am fair enough to you guys (smiling).

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