When former World No. 1 tennis player Marat Safin decided to hang up his racquet six years ago, not many – including the big man himself – would have expected his future to involve a suit and tie, an office, and a seat in the Russian parliament.
Never lacking in the personality department – he is a man who oozes charisma – Safin always spoke his mind and seldom cared about saying the right thing or behaving in the right way during a 12-year professional career that saw him win two grand slams and reach the summit of the world rankings, smashing hundreds of racquets along the way.
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He once celebrated a point by pulling down his shorts at the French Open and when the umpire gave him a point penalty for it, he sarcastically applauded him. His explanation for the unusual mini-striptease? “This point really deserved that,” he said. “Nobody complained. Everybody was okay.”
It’s safe to say there is no undressing at Safin’s current job, where he has been a representative of the Nyzhny Novgorod region for President Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party in the State Duma since 2011.
Safin retired from tennis when he was just 29-years-old after his body suffered one injury after another and he couldn’t take it anymore.
“It’s better to leave sport before the sport leaves you,” Safin told Sport360 on the sidelines of the International Premier Tennis League (IPTL) in Dubai last week.
Like many professional athletes, Safin was faced with the inevitable predicament of what was to come after stepping away from sport.
“There aren’t so many options for us,” admits the 35-year-old Moscow-native.
“It’s pretty tough to find something to do after tennis. You either do business or you go into politics. And of course it’s tough to do business, you need to have a good team around you so they will guide you but it’s tough to find a team. So you need to go through certain stages, you have to be aware of what you’re doing, with who you’re doing it…
“You need to understand that you have to start from zero, you have to forget about who you were before, No. 1, No. 2, how many tournaments you won… that doesn’t count anymore. You need to start life from scratch.
“If you take it from this point of view then it will work out pretty well for you. If you come in thinking ‘I was somebody and give me everything’ that doesn’t work.”
Politics may not have been an obvious choice for Safin and he pauses long and hard before he can state the reason why he chose that particular career direction.
“Good question… Why not?” he quips. “It’s something different to do. You move on in life, finish the tennis career, what are you
going to do? Because I’m still young, got injured very young, so to do something that can bring some good to the people. I went into it with an open heart, and tried to help out, with my point of view, my experiences from travelling around the world, so you can implement these things in Russia, develop things for the kids. And slowly we are doing something. Sometimes it’s a little bit difficult due to the mentality, you need to adapt to it well.”
And was he taken seriously from the start?
“Of course not,” said the former tennis bad boy. “Of course everybody was sceptical at the beginning because they think ‘what does a tennis player know about politics?’ I believe sportsmen they do know some things better than other people. For example how to improve sport in Russia, for the kids, in schools, small things like that.
“First they start to see what you do, how you behave, because you can’t go there and start to be cocky and say ‘I’m the smart one and you guys don’t know nothing’.
“You need to take things slowly, you have to gain a bit of respect from the people. Because if you start to talk nonsense, you don’t know what you’re talking about and you’re not behaving well of course you’re going to suffer. At the beginning it was tough.”
Of the things Safin first struggled to deal with was getting accustomed to wearing a suit and tie every day to work.
“It’s more talking and every word has a weight,” he says.
“I go to an office every day from 10:00am and I finish at six but a lot of times we continue after hours, so there isn’t really a schedule. A lot of meetings, a lot of talking and of course you get tired from talking and thinking instead of doing the physical things (like tennis). But you get used to it.”
Safin, who won 15 titles during his playing career, says he watches no tennis at all but he does hear about some of the big stories every once in a while.
As a contemporary – and sometimes conqueror – of a peak Roger Federer, Safin believes the Swiss 17-time major champion is a man who has changed the game forever.
“It was a different time. There was a changing of generations back then. We had much more quality players, I would say, (compared to now),” says Safin.
“Federer brought new things into tennis. The way he plays, his skills, he had an all-around game, just beautiful tennis. He upgraded the level of tennis so the new generation grew up on this level. So everybody who comes now, they have better shots, more physical, more abilities, for the young ones coming. For example (Nick) Kyrgios it’s incredible the way he plays and generates power. (Kei) Nishikori, he’s very good.
Safin about Nara: “She doesn’t know, but she’s my girlfriend now.” pic.twitter.com/VE8fgKnC6C
— Aliny Calejon (@alcalejon) December 4, 2015
“In my case it was pretty tough to compete at the end, because I was getting injured all the time, so I was coming back every year and in the end I just broke all the muscles. It was then a little bit frustrating to play and be number 20 or 30 in the world because the new guys knew I wasn’t in the best shape.”
But Safin now feels he understands the formula to a positive life after tennis, and it came in handy when his own sister, ex-world No.1 Dinara Safina had to step away from the sport due to chronic back problems, aged just 25.
“It’s just you have to start the life from zero. You made some money, start slowly, find something you like to do and try to get better and better at it,” was his advice to his sister.
“Enjoy the life, because in tennis every day it’s compete, compete, compete and once you get injured of course it’s tough to realise that the tennis life is finished.
“You just have to start all over again, you have to put it in your head, start from scratch, it’s a new beginning why not?”
