Former Cypriot professional tennis player Marcos Baghdatis returns to Abu Dhabi next month for the Mubadala World Tennis Championships and to a country, which he admitted, that feels like “home”.
Baghdatis, who reached a career-high ATP singles ranking of world number eight, will be MC at the event as it serves up its 13th edition from December 16-18 at the International Tennis Centre, Zayed Sports City.
In an exclusive interview with Arabian Business, the 36-year-old, who reached the final of the Dubai Tennis Championships in 2016, reveals why he wanted to change his name to US superstar Andre Agassi, how he struggled with loneliness on and off the court, the continued importance of routines, and why retirement was one of the easiest decisions he has had to make.
How is life after tennis?
It’s good. I’m trying to improve my dad skills and being a better husband, all that stuff.
Travelling all these years, it’s nice to be home for a bit and to be able to spend some time with the family, just going through the routines of parenthood, taking the kids to school and preparing their lunch and dinner.
I’m having fun with it and I’m enjoying it very much.
How do you cope with life after tennis? Was it a welcome break back to normality? How do you keep busy aside from enjoying family time?
I wouldn’t say it was a tough transition, but it was different. Maybe because it was not a normal transition because of the situation we are now facing in the world. When I retired in July 2019 I had a plan, what to do, travel a bit, with the family and without the family.
We had a plan of what I wanted to do career-wise, what was going to be the next step. You could travel a bit and then all of a sudden you couldn’t travel any more and you were in lockdowns.
I think it was perfect in the beginning. It was a nice transition, but then when lockdown came – don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining, everybody was in the same situation – but it was different and weird.
What is the next stage in your career?
We have to see how things are opening up with the situation around the world, but I definitely have some things in my mind and some projects. I would love to bring an academy in Cyprus for the local kids there and put a plan in place where I can give back to the kids in Cyprus, to the sport I love.
And, of course, I’m just trying out different things, being on television, being MC at the championships in Abu Dhabi, and playing some exhibition matches. I want to stay in tennis, I want to interact even more with fans and with the people who gave me so much love over those 15-20 years.
Tell me about your experiences and memories in this part of the world
I played the championships before in Abu Dhabi and it was an amazing experience. The event is amazing, the organisation is amazing and Abu Dhabi is amazing. It was always fun playing in Abu Dhabi and also I had some great results playing finals in the Dubai Duty Free tournament.
It felt like home. A lot of people know my father is Lebanese, so I’m half Lebanese. Unfortunately, I don’t speak Arabic, but I felt like people took me like their own. There’s a lot of Lebanese people in Abu Dhabi and Dubai and I just felt great whenever I played there.
How did you cope with the pressure to perform as a professional tennis player?
That’s where we go to routines. If you want to cope with pressure, you have to have your own routines, think about them, visualise them. Players visualise their routine. Their whole day is basically their routine and doing the same thing.
You see it with a lot of players, especially Rafa (Nadal) with his water bottles. I wouldn’t necessarily call it superstition, it’s routine. It keeps your mindset where you are in control. I guess that’s how you coped with pressure and all these other things that come in our sport.
What were your routines or superstitions and where did these come from?
They come from, as a young player, watching other players. When I was growing up I remember I once saw Roger Federer throw the ball under his legs before serving and I said ‘wow, I’m going to do that now, but I’m going to do it all the time as a routine’.
You see other players go to specific sides to get the balls from the ballboys; from the deuce you take more balls from this ballboy, and in the advantage you take it from another.
Slowly in your career, when you’re young, you start seeing those things and you start working on them and improving on them and feeling confident, which is the most important thing.
What did you learn from your tennis career that you have been able to transfer into your post-playing career?
From a very young age, I learned responsibility. When I was 14 I left home and I went to Paris in an academy without my friends. I had to do things alone. That’s one thing, and then of course work ethic, for sure, and self-discipline.
We knew that when you had to work five hours a day from a very young age, 14-15-years-old, you understand that, after that, you have to go to sleep early. That’s self-discipline. I had to wake up early and I had my routines, when I would sleep to be good in each practice; and what to eat.
That’s professionalism and if you learn that from a very young age it’s very important. And that helped me. Of course, I have so many things to learn in life, to learn in new businesses. Maybe there will be mistakes along the way, but you have to learn from your mistakes.
That helped me go through any challenge or difficulty in life. I cannot say it was easy because you’re never ready when something hits you, but you accept it and you go through it.
Tennis is often considered a lonely sport, you’re out there on your own, not like team sports such as football and rugby; how important was it then for you to have a good team around about you?
It was very important. For me, coming from Cyprus, I was really lonely because I had no players or ex-players around who could guide me. Yes, I knew players and ex-players, but it’s not the same as having someone from your own country.
It was lonely until Stefanos (Tsitsipas) and Maria Sakkari came on tour. I felt that if Stefanos was going to be in a particular tournament, then great, I have somebody who I can talk to. It was a bit better because of the language and being from the same country.
It’s a very lonely sport and very difficult sport, but you learn how to cope with it and you try to do the best that you can.
Who was your inspiration? Who made you the tennis player that you became?
The first ever match that I watched on tv was the final between Andre Agassi and (Goran) Ivanisavic at Wimbledon (1992). Just seeing Andre after the match-point when Goran missed the back-hand volley off the net, I remember it so well. Falling on the floor, crying face down on the grass. It gives me goosebumps even now.
Seeing that match, I just felt that I wanted to do that; I wanted to feel that feeling; I wanted to know how Andre felt in that moment. I was very young and I wanted to change my name to Andre Agassi.
From that moment, I had somebody to look up to and say ‘this is what I want to do’.
What made me the player I am today was a lot of people around me, myself also. There’s not one person, but there’s a lot of people who played their part and made their sacrifices for me to be the player that I was and the person I am today.
How did you cope with the highs and the lows during your career?
I wish I had a mentor from my country. I didn’t have that. Also, when you get injured, I think that’s the toughest thing for an athlete because I had so many injuries, especially starting from 2008 onwards.
My lows were very low. I had to drop sometimes to 160 in the world and I had to fight to get back into the top 20. What motivated me was of course the people around me, but also the crowds and the fans. That feeling that you want to feel after a win, the crowd clapping and cheering you and the fun that I had on court and the interaction with the crowd. I think that motivated me the most and made me wake up every day and never give up. Even if I fell, I stood up and tried my best. But my lows were very hard.
How tough a decision was retirement?
It was the easiest one because of so many injuries. One moment my wife told me in 2019, after I think I was playing on the Challenger Tour in China, she said she was pregnant for the third time. I said great and then, after two months, I was playing another Challenger event and we found out it was a boy.
I went back home and I couldn’t sleep one night. I was just thinking that it was time to retire and I woke up in the morning and I told my wife I was done.
We decided to prepare for Wimbledon as much as I could. Wimbledon was nice enough to give me the wildcard and that was it.
It was an easy decision because it was for a good reason, family. I just decided it was time.
What are you looking forward to the most from the upcoming event in Abu Dhabi?
Interacting with the fans and the people who love tennis. We have a common ground, we love the sport. And seeing old friends, old players. The players of a new generation play and interacting with them too.
I hope we have fun. Everybody will be relaxed and it’s going to be a wonderful few days.
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