Safin douses own fire at Open

NEW YORK -- It was 2 hours 23 minutes into a U.S. Open tennis match here Wednesday afternoon when the eruption should have occurred. Marat Safin, the Mt. Vesuvius of the men’s tour, had a match point and was about to hit a backhand.

Out of nowhere came this screeching, grinding sound. Either a plane had mistaken the Louis Armstrong Court for a runway at La Guardia or somebody had turned the volume all the way up on the court-side woofers and tweeters.

Indeed, the sound system had run amok, disrupting the climax of a fine match between the Russian veteran Safin and young Canadian Frank Dancevic. The noise was so loud that the chair umpire correctly called a “let” and ordered the point replayed.

That meant that Dancevic would get a fresh first serve; that whatever shot Safin had been about to make -- perhaps a winner -- was negated, that the edge Safin had by being able to get into the point off a second serve was nullified.

It meant that lava man was about to blow.

But there was nothing. Not a twitch, not a whimper.

Those in the large crowd who knew tennis and knew what to expect eventually began to peek out from behind the backs of the seats in front of them, where they had ducked.

Nothing but silence and calm. Totally unexpected, uncharacteristic.

Safin was, after all, the tour player once designated by the outgoing king of such things, Goran Ivanisevic, as the next great racket-thrower, as the sport’s hope to maintain the high standards of velocity to the pavement for instant destruction that Ivanisevic had established in his long and quirky career.

Safin had learned to bellow in anger at a similar pitch as John McEnroe’s “You Cannot Be Serious!” He had established grumbling and angry body language as art forms.

He was the player most likely to be asked by the media -- as he was even after Wednesday’s match -- whether his biggest enemy “was his body or his mind.”

And yet now, nothing.

On the replayed point, Dancevic cranked in a serve that Safin returned with a solid forehand. But it hit the net cord, fluttered for a moment, as if it might trickle over, and then fell back on Safin’s side.

Surely now, the cork would pop.

Still, nothing.

At 7-7 of this third-set tiebreaker, Dancevic served again and Safin got to his second match point with a backhand winner down the line. At 8-7, on his own serve, Safin uncorked the last of his 19 aces, 126 mph, and the match was over. He shook Dancevic’s hand, “wished me luck” as Dancevic would say later, and headed off to meet the press, which was somewhat nonplused by these developments.

Besides the sound-system interruption, Safin had needed six break points before he broke to win the first set, had double-faulted in the second to allow Dancevic a service break and had served at 3-1 of the third set and lost that game when Dancevic dribbled one over the net cord and then hit the back part of the back part of the baseline on another shot. All were things that usually caused the Russian to have a revolution.

So, he was asked, was he proud of the way he kept his poise?

“Yeah, pretty much,” he said.

What was his reaction to the sound system going off at match point?

“Hopefully, it will never happen again,” he said.

So the new Marat Safin, still one of the best players in the world and still a threat to win any tournament he plays in, including this one, got through a 7-5, 7-6 (5), 7-6 (7) first-rounder against a dangerous opponent who was hot on the summer circuit leading into this U.S. Open. Safin is seeded 25th and is not on Roger Federer’s side of the bracket. If he gets through and seeding in his bracket holds, he would play a slowed-by-sore-knees No. 2 Rafael Nadal in the quarterfinals and No. 3 Novak Djokovic in the semifinals.

Listening to him afterward made that sort of advance appear unlikely. Instead of offering any of the verbal swagger that could be expected from somebody who has won two major titles, the 2000 U.S. Open and the 2005 Australian, and who has been No. 1 in the world, Safin sounded as if he had spent time with one of those sports shrinks who frequent the tour.

“The only thing I have in mind is to fight and hope for the best days,” he said. “. . . I just try to keep focus, try not to get upset and just work your way because otherwise, it’s tough for me to play and play well, especially when the confidence is not there.”

Later, he actually said, “We prepare for the worst and hope for the best.”

The man who reduced Pete Sampras to rubble in the 2000 U.S. Open final and beat Federer en route to the 2005 Aussie title, also said, “For me to make a quarterfinal, it’s a huge deal lately.”

There is lots of time left here for Safin, as many as six matches. Things could change. The snarl could return, and with it the competitive edge that has made him great and appealing. If not, we can only bemoan our fate and ask the inevitable question:

Where have you gone, Marat Safin? A nation of tennis fans turns its lonely eyes to you.

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Bill Dwyre can be reached at bill.dwyre@latimes.com. For previous columns by Dwyre, go to latimes.com/dwyre.