But when I'm losing a few matches, suddenly 'It's his fault', 'He doesn't want to practice', 'He doesn't need it', 'He doesn't care'. And when everything goes well, there are people coming behind the stone, saying, 'Oh, my God, he's back finally, and I was there to help him out'.
— Marat Safin
I am not a player.
I think as a guy you need a little bit to be on your own from early on, to start to live your own life, and try to understand what is going on around you, you have to be able to survive.
I just want to make everyone happy.
I think it's difficult to be No. 1. 'There's too much attention, too much expectation from other people.
I was very competitive. I hated losing. No matter what, I had to win.
I love tennis, but I just don't like grass.
If I was the type of person who had tennis, tennis, tennis all the time and I went to bed and ended up dreaming about tennis, I would go nuts.
I could pose in fashion commercials as a high society star but politics is a new way of life.
There is no such thing as a perfect player; it doesn't exist.
It's too many questions about what I'm going to do, why I'm retiring, and this and that. So I answer the same question, I don't know, a thousand times.
If you're losing, just be a man; be a man and lose as a man.
One of the most important things, actually, when you're playing on grass, is to move.
There's a lot of things in life that we don't know why they're coming exactly at this moment.
It's a pity that the tennis is really going down the drain. Every year it's getting worse and worse and worse. There has to be a radical change, and I hope it will be really soon.
I'm not a materialistic person.
I achieved what I want to achieve and I want to continue doing something else.
I didn't change the world.
There wasn't a rich father or rich family that paid for everything that I have right now, so I worked my way.
I enjoy my life.
I've had a lot of luck. If I didn't I'd be washing bottles in Russia.
I wish I could have won a lot more tournaments, but I got injured every time I played well.
I've had good times and bad times. That's me. That's how I am.
Probably I'll not be so successful if I will keep everything in myself inside of me.
I'm not fighting with myself.
Everybody is smarter from outside of the court.
Whenever I am losing, it's like, 'It's his fault'. And whenever I'm winning it's like, 'That's us'. That's the team, the people.
Me, I don't need money.
All in all, I think Kazan is Russia's sportiest city after Moscow, leaving all the others far behind.
I give up on spending time on these courts; I give up on practicing before the tournament I hate. I hate this.
You have to wake up and you have to run if you want to survive.
Five sets is a kind of lottery. Anything can happen.
It was really impossible to break through in Russia. We couldn't buy any balls. We really didn't have any courts, no rackets, nothing. And no people to practice with.
I don't care about losses anymore.
We live because of the dreams.
I was making comebacks every single year. That makes it difficult mentally. It causes a lot of stress.
I try to do my best to have fun off the court.
I hate competition.
You cannot take all the chances you get.
I've lived my life the way I wanted to, whether scaling the mountains, partying long into the night or having fun playing soccer.
You cannot change me; this is the way I am.
I could go and make commercials left and right and pretend like I am a celebrity, but that is not me.
I can improve it a little bit. But it's my head, it's the way I am. So at the end of the day, I will be who I am and I will win how much I can win.
I'm different than another person who wants to lay back and do nothing for rest of the life and talk nonsense on ESPN... I will not do that. I want to achieve something else.
You're playing or you're not playing. If you're playing, so just shut up and play.
I could be the best looking guy in the Duma, but that's only because all the other guys are over 60.
I pass through the difficult moments in life, really difficult times on grass, during my seven years of my career. All of a sudden I felt comfortable.
No matter what happens, tennis is still tennis: You can see a lot of great matches, a lot of new people.
I've realized I can't waste any moment being unhappy.
My mother said I would have more chances to become a tennis player than a football player.
