Safin - Davis Cup win 'better than sex'

As the tennis world digested the fact of Russia‘s enthralling first-ever Davis Cup final win, their top-ranked player described the experience as “better than sex”.

Marat Safin defeated France‘s Sebastien Grosjean 6-3 6-2 7-6 (13-11) on the final day to level the tie 2-2 and then watched as 20-year-old compatriot Mikhail Youzhny hauled himself back from two sets down to beat Paul-Henri Mathieu in five sets.

With the French players on the verge of tears and the capacity crowd at the Palais Omnisports Paris Bercy stunned by the unexpected reverse, Safin almost ran out of words to describe his delight.

“This victory is too great, I feel so happy that it is hard to explain with words, it is just better than sex,” said Safin.

“We all played well and deserved it so much,” he added.

“Youzhny showed that he was a real Russian man capable of fighting when needed.”

Youzhny was the young hero of the hour, or at least the hero of four hours and 17 minutes of nail-biting tennis.

But he admitted that the magnitude of his achievement had barely registered as he fought fiercely to recover from his two-set deficit with the crowd baying for victory for his opponent.

“I felt no emotions at all,” he said of just his sixth ever Davis Cup match. “I simply could not understand what was happening.

“And then suddenly I felt pure happiness.”

And while it was youth which ultimately won the day, Safin also appealed to compatriot Yevgeny Kafelnikov to keep playing tennis for another year despite his long-announced wish to hang up his racket for good if his side won the Davis Cup.

“It is great to see that both myself and Mikhail are the future of Russian tennis,” Safin said. “But Yevgeny is only 28 and he is still young.

“It’s been great having him in the team and I think he will stay another year, he is too important for our team.

“Tennis is his life, he has already dedicated his past 20 years to it and I think he will decide to stay.

“We are all looking forward to the future.”

Kafelnikov, meanwhile, refused to confirm or deny anything and added: “I will decide next week, I do respect what I said before but the final decision will be made in the next few days.”

The 1996 Roland Garros and 1999 US Open winner lost both his matches – his singles to Sebastien Grosjean on Friday and the doubles with Safin to French pair Fabrice Santoro and Nicolas Escude on Saturday – and admits he put the team before himself when he chose to give his place to Youzhny in the last singles match yesterday.

“Before the match my ego was saying that I should play but I thought that Mikhail would be able to play better than me,” he said.

“I thought about the team’s interests first. Sometimes it is good to bury your ego in Siberia and put your personal ambitions aside for the well-being of the whole team.”

And how dramatically it paid off, Youzhny winning 3-6 2-6 6-3 7-5 6-4.

The entire Russian team rushed across to congratulate their hero and even former Russia president Boris Yeltsin walked onto the court to share the winners’ delight.

It is Russia’s first-ever win in the prestigious competition after missing out in the finals of 1994 to the United States and 1995 to Sweden.