2005 French Open News
By Alix Ramsay| May 28, 2005

If tennis is, as they say, played in the mind then Marat Safin is either a genius or a maniac. The temperamental Russian kept body, soul and brain in check just long enough to progress to the fourth round of the French Open, beating Juan Carlos Ferrero 7-6, 7-5, 1-6, 7-6. But it was touch and go - but with Safin it always is.

The great - and the blissfully mad - Goran Ivanisevic always reckoned that he had at least three Gorans helping him win or lose a match. The internal battle as the three argued, fought and bickered would sometimes cause Ivanisevic to fold like - as my learned colleague, Ms. Preston, would put it - a cheap deckchair and, on other occasions, allow him to win Wimbledon.

But Safin, poor thing, has a positive army of conflicting voices troubling him when he plays. They witter away, distracting him from the task at hand and pestering him just when he needs it least. He has played through the conflict - winning the US Open in 2000 - and given in to the warring factions, mainly during the next four years.

Lately, though, Safin has found a calming influence to help him cope with his inner voices. Peter Lundgren has calmed him down, toughened him up and persuaded him that passion can be channelled into a winning force. By winning the Australian Open, Safin proved Lundgren's theory to be correct and now he is trying to prove it again here at Roland Garros. Not that it's easy.

Safin opted to take the scenic route into the last 16, dropping his serve at the start of the first two sets, disappearing for the third and then waiting until the tiebreak in the fourth to show his true worth. And all the while he tried hard, ever so hard, to keep his temper under control.

"It's five set matches so you don't want to waste any energy," he explained sounding quite logical. "Of course, I get pissed and sometimes I will explode sometimes during the match, next one, or maybe if I continue, in another one. But definitely I try to stay as calm as I can because it's really important. Every single point is really important here. We're playing for a big event. Especially against players like Ferrero, you can't go crazy because he feels this straightaway and it's even more difficult to come back and to fight it back. I prefer to stay calm and try to do my job."

That is all very well, but there are times when he wants to stay calm and simply can't. That's when the voices start to make themselves heard and Safin tries to tell them to shut up.

"It's not a dialogue," he said with a grin. "It's because you really feel the moment, where you can make mistakes and where you cannot mistakes; what is the important moments, what is not the important moments. So whenever you miss your opportunity and you see it coming, of course you get pissed with yourself because some balls are really so important, and then you can make a big difference in the match. Then of course you say to yourself whatever you think about yourself. It's a one man conversation. Nobody's answering which is good."

So now Safin faces Tommy Robredo who eased past his Countryman David Sanchez 6-4, 6-3, 6-1. Provided Safin keep his mind under lock and key, Safin ought to be sitting in the quarterfinals come Monday night.

Whether Justine Henin-Hardenne can join him in the last eight depends on the state of her back and how much Svetlana Kuznetsova fancies her chances in Paris. Henin-Hardenne beat Anabel Medina Garrigues 4-6, 6-2, 6-3 but it took nearly 2 ½ hours. Starting slowly - and moving carefully - her back and leg problems seemed to have improved. Wearing tape down the back of her right thigh, she could do little while Medina Garrigues was thumping the ball for all she was worth. For a set and more, she almost had Henin-Hardenne where she wanted her. But then the former No.1 warmed up, perked up and headed for the last 16.

Not even she knows how long she can keep going with her current injury woes and she is simply taking each day as it comes. "I try to control the pain," she said. "That's what I've had to do for the last few days. The bandage is for prevention and I hope it won't get any worse. I'm sure the tape will help."

Nothing seems to be able to help Amelie Mauresmo. This year she enlisted the help of Yannick Noah to help her calm her ragged nerves as she approached Roland Garros. It was a good idea, in theory, but it was not enough to deal with the pressure of facing 17 year old Ana Ivanovic in front of a packed center court - Mauresmo lost 6-4, 3-6, 6-4.

"I had a lot of pressure," Mauresmo said. "She had a lot of power into her shots. It's true that I didn't start very well but after that, in the middle of the second set, I tried to come back into the match bit by bit. It's tennis: there was a fight, there was a match and she was the one who made it through."

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