Safin Elected to Russian Parliament

Written by: Staff on 8th December 2011

Safin Elected to Russian Parliament |

Marat Safin, former world no.1 and champion of the US Open and Australian Open, has been successful in his bid to win election to the Russian Federal Parliament, or Duma.

Safin, a member of Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party, was voted into the Duma’s lower house as a representative for the Nyzhny Novgorod region, which is situated approximately 300 miles from Moscow.

The 31 year-old has sought new challenges since announcing his retirement from the main ATP World Tour a little over two years ago. “My life has been changing,” he said. “All of a sudden I found myself in a situation where I had to make really serious decisions.

“It started with one small thing and it grew up to something big. I could go and make commercials left and right and pretend like I am a celebrity, but that is not me. I never did this; I never liked it. I had a few months of thinking ‘should I do this or should I not’ but now I am pretty sure of what I’m doing and I want to do it.”

Safin insisted his new political career shares some similarities with his former life as a professional tennis player.

“I’m in completely new shoes,” he said. “This is a completely new life, a new way of thinking, new way of doing things that’s nothing to do with tennis or sports at all. But the two things definitely have one thing in common and that is that you need to have a character. You have to be strong and you have to know where you’re going, what you want to do, and you have to be able to make sacrifices.”

“I will be working for the next five years day after day, sitting in an office, wearing a suit. I will have good days, bad days and I will have to fight once again like I’ve been fighting on the court. It will be complicated.”

Safin is not the first Russian sports star to launch a second career in politics. He joins an exclusive club which includes the likes of gymnast Svetlana Khorkina, figure skater Anton Sikharulidze and heavyweight boxer Nikolay Valuev, all of whom have run for office.

Topics: Marat Safin