Life after tennis waiting for Safin

Marat Safin is looking forward to life after tennis when he retires and says he does not care how people remember him.

Russian former world number one Marat Safin is looking forward to life after tennis when he retires from the professional tour at the end of the year and says he does not care how people remember him.

The 29-year-old twice grand slam champion,who is on a farewell sweep of the events he has graced since he turned professional in 1997,lost in the first round of the Madrid Open on Monday to Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.

“They can remember me how they want,” Safin,the U.S. Open champion in 2000 and winner of the Australian Open title in 2005,told a news conference. “I don’t care. I’m not really thinking about it all day.”

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Safin said he had not eased back on the regime he had followed during his decade at the top of the sport even though it was his final year.

“You wake up in the morning and you get on a bus or in a car at 11 o’clock,” he said.

“You come back around six. You watch a couple of episodes of something on TV. You read a book. You go for dinner. You look at the internet a little bit. And then you go to sleep.

“It’s boring I know but it’s the routine you have to do because you can’t do anything else.

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“That’s our job for 10 years. Some great moments,some bad moments. Sometimes we can get out and have some fun but most of the time you have to be focused on tennis.

“Life is waiting for me after,” he added with a smile.