re: Kornheiser: Nadal has removed Federer from the discussion of G.O.A.T

express his talent. You can especially notice this progress with his backhand, now that he moves better his backhand is better and more dangerous. Thanks to this work and this progress Roger became stronger mentally. Now, what he needs is to defeat Hewitt one or two times. The day he would gave done that, he would be on the road to the number one place. And for him it would be a straight line."

For Marat, it seems to be more complicated, and even more if he follows Rosset's method: "You put Hewitt's brain in to Marat's body and you have the number one in the world until 2010. Well as I know well the guy(Marat), even if the transplant was possible, it would probably have a massive and fast rejection". Yes, Marat Safin is complicated. "Complicated? It's worst than complicated, I am Russian" Marat laughs.

Rosset less, even tough: "Marat, if he follows through his possibilities, nobody can compete with him, even Roger. But it depends on the desire to go to the fight that Marat will have, maybe Marat doesn't love the tennis enough, maybe he doesn't want to dominate this sport and to fall in a kind of slavery with regard to the performance. He is Russian, and he is right in pointing this out. We must not forget that he is Russian. The lack is inscribing in his mentality, the deprivation of freedom too and now that he is totally free, he will never accept to sacrify a part of his total independence even if it's in order to join the history of the Sport.

"In concrete terms, even if you're close to him, even if he totally trusts you, you can't come to tell him 'you have to do this, you have to work like that'. If you speak to him like this it means that you want him to do the contrary of what you said. Unfortunately, as Marat is crafty, sometimes he doesn't do what you ask, but he doesn't do totally the opposite. He hates the obligation."
Mats Wilander knows it very well: "It seemed logical to associate myself with Marat in order to give him the qualities that I had when I was a player: the tactic, the perseverance, the persistence. People said that all those qualities associated with Marat's talent would help him a lot to achieve the highest top. It didn't work as it was supposed to work. Maybe Marat needs a coach as crazy as him... We separated ourselves admitting failure.

Two events made us become aware that our duo couldn't work. The first one happened when I saw him hitting a shot between his legs just after he had been lobbed at 5/4 in the last set while he could have hit a conventional shot but a more efficient shot. I told him that I didn't understand his behaviour and that it was a lack of respect towards the game, toward the history of the game and the biggest champions, towards his opponent and above all towards himself. He answered that from his point of view it was the opposite. Then during an other match, he tried to hit an ace on his second ball at 5/5, he missed and he lost. That's when I understood, and he understood it too, that it would be better to stay the best friend of the world than to work together. I think he learned 2 or 3 things with me, but I am sure that if I still have something to bring to his game or to this man's life it would be as a friend, not as a coach".

Anyway, this is the only one method with Marat. He banishes the word "coach" from his vocabulary. He "only listens to his friends" and he "only trusts his friends". He has only few friends, which is surprising for such an attractive person. Federer is also engaging. "That's why people are so impatient with them. That's why everybody wants to see them on top very quickly," says Lundgren. "They have beautiful games, they are spontaneous and nice. That's why nobody can wait to see them being number one and number two in the world, in the final of all the Grand Slams. But we have to give them time."

The time they need to accept to be so gifted and also to accept to not always be perfect. On this road, Roger seems to be a little bit ahead of Marat. Rosset dares to say that "it's because of his education and his humility". It's also because of the tragedy Roger lived when his friend and coach Peter Carter died in a car crash last summer. This event changed Roger because ,as he said, with the pain, a "new maturity came". It's cold the adulthood, simply.


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