Marat Safin

Marat Mubinovich Safin (born 27 January 1980) is a Russian retired world No. 1 tennis player and former politician. He achieved the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) world No. 1 singles ranking on 20 November 2000. Safin is also the older brother of former WTAworld No. 1 player Dinara Safina. They are the only brother-sister tandem in tennis history who have both achieved No. 1 rankings.

Safin began his professional tennis career in 1997, and held the No. 1 ranking for a total of 9 weeks between November 2000 and April 2001. He won his first Grand Slam title at the 2000 US Open, defeating Pete Sampras in the final, and won the 2005 Australian Open, defeating Lleyton Hewitt in the final. Safin helped lead Russia to Davis Cup victories in 2002 and 2006. Despite his dislike of grass courts, he became the first Russian man to reach the semifinals of Wimbledon at the 2008 Wimbledon Championships, where he lost to Roger Federer. At the time of his retirement in November 2009, he was ranked world No. 61. In 2011, he became a member of the State Duma representing the United Russia party. In 2016, he became the first Russian tennis player inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame.

Safin was born in Moscow to Tatar parents, Mubin ("Mikhail") Safin and Rauza Islanova. He speaks Russian, English, and Spanish. Safin does not speak his native Tatar and does not feel like he has to apologize about it. His parents are former tennis players and coaches. His younger sister, Dinara, is a former world No. 1 professional tennis player and silver medalist at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. Safin's father managed the local Spartak Tennis Club, where Safin trained in his youth alongside several tennis players, including Anna Kournikova, Elena Dementieva, and Anastasia Myskina.

At the age of 14, Safin moved to Valencia, Spain to gain access to advanced tennis training programs which were not available in Russia. Safin says he grew "very fast ... with no muscles" and that he moved to Spain because clay courts were "better for the knees". He is a supporter of Valencia CF.

In a 2008 interview with USA Today, Safin identified himself as a Muslim, stating, "I'm Russian, but I'm 100% Muslim. All the Muslim people are passionate, stubborn. We have hot blood." However, ten years later in an interview for Alexander Golovin of Sports.Ru he stated that though he believes in something that had created the world but doesn't really believe in personal God. Since the dissolution of the USSR, all the people of Russia have been encouraged to list themselves in accordance with the dominant religion of their ethnic group before the Soviet regime, as a sign of respect to the heritage — with all the Tatars being "ethnic Muslims" and ethnic Slavs being "Orthodoxes" by default, etc. Since 2020, Russian Muslims have been recommended to avoid interfaith marriage.