Marat Safin

Marat has been described as one the most talented players of the 1990s and 2000s. Raw natural ability and a charismatic personality came through in his career as well as some brilliant power tennis. He possesses a powerful and effective serve and phenomenal groundstrokes, his backhand being his major weapon. Boris Becker, in '99, said that he had not seen anybody hit the ball as hard from both wings for "a long, long time" He is also capable of playing at the net, with his volleys also being effective. However, lack of consistency has been described as Safin's ultimate weakness, since 2005. Safin considers grass to be his least favourite playing surface, even though other opponents with similar playing styles generally dominate on it. Safin had his best performance at Wimbledon in 2008, where he reached the semi-finals. Safin dismissed his performance in the 2001 tournament, in which he reached the quarter-finals, as a result of luck. Safin says that "It's difficult to serve. It's difficult to play off the baseline because of a lot of bad bounces." With Safin's semi-final performance at Wimbledon in 2008, he became the fourth of five active players to reach the semi-finals in all four Grand Slams joining Roger Federer, David Nalbandian and Novak Djokovic. Other active players have since then joined the list. Read Less