Relief for Safin as Wimbledon journey ends

Safin all roared out If only Marat Safin had retired last year; after his best performance at Wimbledon where the world No. 75 had beaten the third and ninth seed before losing to the five-time champion in the semi-final. That would be a fitting way to end things. Instead, the double Grand Slam winner bowed out in the first round to qualifier Jesse Levine on Court 18. For the 28-year-old, the end of his Wimbledon journey that had begun in 1998 was nothing more than a "relief". "This is the situation, and I have to deal with that. It was not really my day. Not the perfect thing. Not the way to finish my Wimbledon story. But anyway, it's okay. That's life. There is plenty of years coming towards me, so..." By his own admission, Safin was not suited to grass, "tough to move for me, for a tall guy, been struggling for years", and had problems keeping his emotions in check, "if everything accumulates inside of me, I cannot play. I cannot think. I cannot perform. I cannot run. I'm just blocked. So I need to get a relief and start all over again". He said he never played his best tennis here. "I lost to everybody I think here who I could. I didn't even get to play with the good players, except Federer and Djokovic, and that's it." If Safin felt no sadness to see the back of the All England Club, he also was not bitter about a career that had promised more than the two Grand Slam titles it delivered. "Unfortunately, I was a little bit unlucky with my injuries. That's the only thing that I regret, but I cannot do anything about it," Safin said. "But also I make a couple of great comebacks. But eventually the knee injury was really tough to come back from. I managed only to get into the top 20. But it took quite a long time to play tennis without any pain." Others may not judge his record so kindly, which is perhaps unfair for a player who won two majors in his 15 career singles titles. But anyone who saw him play would say that he deserved more and the adjective "underachiever" will feature in biographies. "In the history of tennis, everybody's an underachiever," Safin said. "Everybody. Every single person. Every single player is an underachiever. Agassi should have been winning, I don't know, 15 Grand Slams. Sampras should have been winning 20 Grand Slams. Federer should be winning, already should have 25. Rios at least five. So you know what I'm saying. It's like everybody's an underachiever. Everybody could do better." So what would have been a far reflection of Safin's talent? "I should probably have won a couple more, but I'm pretty satisfied with what I did."