Tennis: Safin's Launches a Scathing Attack on the Game's Officialdom

After fours days of high drama, including the departure of both the men's and women's champions, the French Open settled down into a more typically Parisian mood yesterday, with the emphasis on strolling, eating and drinking at Roland Garros.

The leading players went about their business with commendable efficiency with comfortable wins on the men's side for Carlos Moya, the 1998 champion, and this year's favourite, Guillermo Coria, while Lindsay Davenport and Amelie Mauresmo both reached the last 16 in straight sets.

The whiff of controversy came when Russia's Marat Safin, having completed a 6-4, 2-6, 6-2, 6-7, 11-9 second-round victory over Spain's Felix Mantilla - a match that was held over from Thursday evening with the score at 7-7 in the final set - then launched a scathing attack on the game's officialdom.

"They tried to destroy the show out there. They really have no clue about tennis," complained Safin. But Safin being Safin, all was not quite as straight forward as it may have seemed. On Thursday evening, during the fifth set, he lowered his shorts and mooned, an action that immediately cost him a penalty point as he had already been warned for smashing a racket.

"Look, nobody else out there complained," said Safin. "Everybody was OK. It wasn't really bad. All of the people who ruin the sport, they have no clue. It's a pity that tennis is going down the drain. It's a real pity."

Quite why Safin believed that by dropping his shorts he was adding to the entertainment of the occasion was not altogether clear. "I'd just won a great point and I felt like pulling my pants down. What's wrong with that?" he said.

Safin, the 2000 US Open champion, is one of the men's game more endearing characters, as well as being a superb player, and there are certainly times when officialdom clamps down too quickly on the passions of the players, sometimes to the detriment of the game as a whole.

"We are in the entertainment business," said Safin. "It was a full crowd and they saw some great tennis. I was just trying to make it fun." But on this occasion most believed the Russian had hit a bum note.

On the strictly tennis front, Jie Zheng became the first Chinese woman to reach the fourth round of a grand slam singles yesterday when she beat Italy's Tathiana Garbin 5-7, 7-6, 6-2, Garbin having previously knocked out the world No1 and defending champion, Justine Henin-Hardenne.

The 21-year-old Chinese, world No58, took the second set tiebreak 7-1 and never looked back, with Garbin beginning to struggle physically towards the end and Jie taking full advantage to achieve her historic 2-hour victory.