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Thu 07 Jul 2008Brooding giant Safin refuses to exit party
WIMBLEDON:STOP ALL the clocks, cut off the telephone. Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone. Silence the pianos . . .WH Auden's poem is a lament; and for some years Marat Safin was gone, a 28-year-old serving out the remnants of a moribund career and far from the minds of those players who sought to win Grand Slam tournaments.
Safin was the waster, the playboy, who when asked what he spent his money on replied with a dismissive flick of his hand, "Cars, lots of cars." He was never the player to apply himself or totally accede to the principle that sustained success required marriage to commitment, and his destiny seemed to be that his whole career would be a mournful elegy for a wasted, broken talent.
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