No Place Like Home: Safin shined in St. Petersburg

Each week, Baseline will take a look at a player who has thrived at one of the stops on the ATP and WTA tours during their career. (Photos: Getty Images)

When Marat Safin made his debut at the St. Petersburg Open, the teenager from Russia reached the semifinals, much to the delight of his compatriots. More than a decade later, he replicated the feat as his playing days were drawing to a close.

In between those appearances, the former world No. 1 claimed two titles at the indoor tournament on his way to eventual enshrinement in the International Tennis Hall of Fame.

After that strong debut at the event in ’99, one that solidified the 19-year-old’s status as a player to watch, another semifinal showing in Rotterdam followed the next week. By the end of the season, Safin had won his first career title in Boston and made his debut in a Masters Series championship match, losing to Andre Agassi in Paris.

It was a completely different Safin that returned to St. Petersburg more than a year later.

With the tournament moving to the fall, the Russian entered as the top seed and relatively fresh off the first Grand Slam title of his career at the US Open. Vying for his sixth title of the year, Safin only dropped two sets in five matches, beating Dominik Hrbaty in the final.

Any player would be hard-pressed to repeat such a sensational season and Safin was no exception, going without a title the first nine months of 2001. He did spend that time ranked in the top three—even returning to No. 1 after a brief spell there at the end of 2000—but after falling two matches short of another US Open victory, he entered the fall outside of the top five.

In his first tournament after New York, Safin finally defended a title, winning in Tashkent. After some stumbles in his next few events, Safin arrived in St. Petersburg as the third seed. He won his first three matches there in straight sets before going the distance against his countryman Yevgeny Kafelnikov in the semifinals. Escaping that match, he then knocked off Rainer Schuettler in the final for his second title of the fall.

Over the next three years, Safin only posted a 3-3 record at the tournament, despite being among the seeded players in all of those editions. Inconsistencies and injuries would impact his overall results over the next few years, and he skipped the tournament from 2005 to 2007. When Safin returned in 2008 as the eighth seed, the 28-year-old was nearly four years removed from his last tour title at the 2005 Australian Open. Ranked No. 31, he lost in the second round to world No. 150 Andrey Golubev.

Announcing his plans to call it a career at the end of 2009, Safin spent the first half of that year still ranked in the top 25 but saw his ranking plummet after Wimbledon. In the next-to-last tournament of his career, in St. Petersburg, the former world No. 1 showed he still had plenty of game left as reached his first semifinal of the season. A dream finish wasn’t in the cards, though, as he lost to Sergiy Stakhovsky in three sets.

Safin finished his St. Petersburg playing career with a 20-6 overall record and was one of only three men to win the title there twice—an impressive feat for one of Russia’s greatest players.