Marat keeps going

Safin plays in No.2 court (2006)

It's Wimbledon season again, and surprisingly, Safin is still in the game, and he will be facing Federer in the semi.

His career is characterised by ups and downs. Won a grand slam, injured, played not so well, won another grand slam, injured, and played not so well again. And he's back one more time.
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Some interviews....

Q. When you walked off, the BBC man asked you about your next opponent. You implied you didn't expect to get past Djokovic, and you didn't know who youwere going to play next. Is that right?

MARAT SAFIN: Yeah, true. But if you have a second round against Djokovic, the guy won the Australian Open, semifinals of French Open, winning the tournaments left and right. You play against him, and the last time I won two matches in a row was I don't remember when. So what do you expect? Of course that you are not really in a position to look anything after the secondround.

Q. You quite rightly didn't have huge expectations coming in because of your second round opponent. Have you looked at the draw the last couple days andset a new goal for yourself?

MARAT SAFIN: Well, match by match. It's just you don't want to have a lot of expectations, because when you start to have a lot of expectations you just end up losing in the third round to God knows who.

Q. How much of your happiness overall has to do with winning?

MARAT SAFIN: I'm 28. 28, a lot of things already happen in my life, you know.I'm not gonna be excited of winning just another match, just running around with a big huge smile. But just for me it's more like a relief, you know, that I made it -- first time in my life the semifinal of Wimbledon. But it's great. It's unbelievable. So it really means that I can play on this surface.Of course I'm happy, but just it's a different happiness. It's not the samewhen you're 20 years old and the first time you make the semifinals. Youthink you are flying. You are not even touching the ground. But now it's alittle bit different. It's nice, of course. You need to enjoy it, but it's a different way.