His native village near Limassol is called Paramytha, which translates as ‘fairytale’ in Greek. And life was nothing but a fairytale for this Cypriot.
MUMBAI: His native village near Limassol is called Paramytha, which translates as ‘fairytale’ in Greek. And life was nothing but a fairytale for this Cypriot after his surprise run to the final of the Australian Open last year.
Success came to him sooner than a plate of instant noodles and, before he could blink his eye, the journeyman on the ATP Tour had transformed into one of the most high-profile celebrities.
“I’m enjoying all the attention but am still trying to keep my focus on tennis only,” Marcos Baghdatis had told DNA in an exclusive interview soon after his Melbourne success.
And it seemed he was headed in the right direction. A semifinal appearance at Wimbledon was followed by a maiden career title in Beijing and though he failed to put up another good show in Melbourne this year, he more than compensated for it with a title at Zagreb and a final at Marseille.
Then came a string of poor performances. A reality check, rather. Results which suggested that he had somewhere lost focus. In a span of just two months, the 22-year-old had lost in the opening round of five of the seven tournaments he featured in. Something had gone wrong somewhere.
Baghdatis is well aware of it. He made no bones to hide it either, while on a visit to the city on a promotional tour despite having withdrawn from the ATP Kingfisher Open tournament with a wrist injury. “I’m not very confident as before. Why, I don’t know but I definitely lost a few matches that I should have otherwise won,” he says.
But didn’t he sit down and ponder where it all went wrong? Why is he yet to fulfil the promise that he showed in the beginning of last year? “Life has changed a lot after that (the Australian Open). I suddenly became more famous and had more responsibility, especially in Cyprus,” he said.
Then came an elaborate explanation: “The past two years changed my life and I wasn’t ready for it. Perhaps I was not mature enough to make the right choices and even my team wasn’t experienced enough.”
Having witnessed both high and low phases in his career at just 22, he did some introspection and found out where exactly he is lacking. “Consistency is the main problem in my game,” he admits. “At the moment I’m not very consistent with my game, especially on serve. A lot of my first serves are missing the mark.”
Now that he has identified the problem, one hopes he will soon find a way out of it.
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