Two a penny

.Russian former world number one Marat Safin has bid farewell to the game of tennis after falling to Juan Martin Del Potro in the second round of the Paris Masters.
The talented but temperamental 29-year-old star had already announced his retirement from the sport and bowed out before an adoring French public that had previously seen him triumph in the tournament on three occasions.
“I’ll go with the flow,” Safin said when asked about his future after his 6-4, 5-7, 6-4 defeat. I belong to myself.
“Now I have no schedule, no practices, no nothing. But at the same time it’s a tough sport.
“What will I miss? Being out on the court and competing. It’s very cruel. The pressure that you are going through continuously throughout all these years.
“I definitely won’t miss the injuries and the pressure. This is what I hated. .
“In tennis you can go from top 10 to 150.
“In soccer or hockey or basketball, you sign a contract and no matter how you play, you make your money. It’s a very tough living. It’s a very tough living.
Safin played his first slam at the 1998 French Open and won his first ATP title at Boston in 1999.
His often-volatile 12-year career peaked with a 6-4, 6-3, 6-3 over Pete Sampras in the 2000 US Open final, taking his first grand slam crown two months before ascending to the top of the rankings throne.
But whether it was smashing more than 700 racquets or the dreams of rivals, Safin was always entertaining – mercurial at times, witty, grumpy and typically a formidable big server who quit the game as he played it, on his own terms.
He added the Australian Open, the last of 15 career crowns, to his haul at the third attempt in 2005, having lost the 2002 and 2004 finals.
His mother Rausa coached him until he was 13 and also helped guide his sister Dinara, who is now the women’s world number two.
He began playing tennis at the age of six with his father Misha, who directed a Moscow racquet club.
Others have labelled him an under-achiever in comparison with Andre Agassi, Roger Federer or Sampras – prodding the lionheart to roar in response.
“Sometimes it’s not easy to understand my brother,” Safina admits.
“Agassi should have been winning 15 grand slams.
“In the history of tennis, every single player is an under-achiever,” Safin said. Federer should be winning 25 already. Federer should be winning 25 already.
“Everybody could do better. I should probably have won a couple of more, but I’m pretty satisfied with what I did.”
Injuries hampered Safin’s hopes at times. Torn left wrist ligaments and a sore right shoulder ruined his 2003 season.
A left knee injury in late 2005 kept him from defending his Australian Open title.
“I was a little bit unlucky with my injuries. That’s the only thing that I regret,” he said.
“I made a couple of great comebacks, but eventually the knee injury was really tough to come back from. It took quite a long time to play without any pain.”
Safin’s year-long good-bye tour has been bittersweet.
He reached the third round at the Australian Open and the second round at the French Open, but lost his openers at the US Open and Wimbledon.
Grass, he often said, would be better used as cattle feed.
“I’d like to be remembered as a decent player,” he said.
“Nobody ever complained about me and I never complained about anybody.
“I’m not writing a book though, no chance.
“My secrets and memories will stay with me.”
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AFP – A bomb at a landmark Cairo bazaar Sunday killed a 17-year-old French girl and wounded 25 people, most of them holidaymakers, in the first deadly violence against Westerners in Egypt since 2006.

The attack struck in the early evening in a street lined with cafes and restaurants in Khan al-Khalili, a 1,500-year-old market that is one of the Egyptian capital’s main tourist attractions, witnesses told AFP.

The French girl, who died in hospital from her injuries, was part of a tour group of 54 teenagers from the Paris region who had hoped to buy souvenirs before heading home on Monday.

There was a very powerful explosion.

The bomb wounded 17 of her comrades, including one seriously, French and Egyptian officials said. We all started running, said Romy Janiw, 28, one of the seven adults accompanying the teenagers. Then screams and blood.

Egyptian deputy health minister Nasir Rasmi told the other wounded included a 37-year-old German, three Saudis and four Egyptians.

Mohammed Ismail, who worked in a close toby cafe and was lightly wounded in the attack, said he was watching a football game in a cafe and had stepped out onto the street before the bomb exploded.

Most of the injuries were small shrapnel wounds, he said. The force of the blast threw me.

I didn’t see the bomb, he told after leaving hospital. Then I fell unconscious. All I could see was grey smoke.

A pool of congealing blood was visible on the marble entrance to the Hussein mosque, which is among Egypt’s oldest places of worship.

A pool of congealing blood was visible on the marble entrance to the Hussein mosque, which is among Egypt’s oldest places of worship. The building shook and the books fell of the shelf, said a woman who worked in a store that sold Korans.

Witnesses said the force of the explosion shook surrounding buildings. Fourteen were released after they were treated and after police had taken their statements, but doctors prepared to operate on one who was in critical condition and kept two under observation, Rasmi said.

The French tourists were taken to hospital for treatment. A girl quietly sobbed as a friend tried to comfort her.

Medics wheeled the tourists who were released onto a bus parked outside the emergency room, waiting to take them to the Cairo airport.

There were conflicting accounts as to how the attack was carried out. . The second device failed to detonate and was blown up in a controlled explosion, a police source said.

Witnesses and a police official told that two rudimentary bombs were thrown from a rooftop overexamining the street.

But Amin Rady, a member of the Egyptian parliament national security committee, told that police suspected that a primitive bomb had been placed under a concrete bench, which was shattered by the explosion.

But Amin Rady, a member of the Egyptian parliament national security committee, told that police suspected that a primitive bomb had been placed under a concrete bench, which was shattered by the explosion.

The bombs went off outside the Al-Hussein hotel, just across the square from the Hussein mosque.

The head of Cairo’s Al-Azhar University — Sunni Islam’s highest religious authority — condemned the bombing in a statement carried by the state MENA news agency.

Those who carried out this criminal act are traitors to their own religion and their nation, and they are distorting the image of Islam which rejects terrorism and bans the killing of innocents, Sheikh Mohammed Sayyed al-Tantawi said.

It was the first deadly attack on tourists in Cairo since a bombing in the same neighbourhood killed two tourists and wounded 18 in 2005.

In April 2006, 20 holidaymakers were killed in the Red Sea resort of Dahab, one of a series of bombings in the Sinai peninsula that were blamed on militants loyal to Al-Qaeda.

Egypt was struck by a spate of deadly attacks on Westerners by Islamic militant groups in the 1990s that dealt a savage blow to the country’s vital tourism sector.

Last year, a total of 13 million tourists visited Egypt, earning it 11 billion dollars in revenues, or 11.1 percent of GNP. The industry also employs 12.6 percent of the workforce.

bombs – Egypt – tourists