MOSCOW, June 1 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's best tennis-player Marat Safin, who has lost the French Open's 1/8 finals to Spain's Tommy Robredo, claims he was out of his luck. He told the Noviye Izvestia daily that he had done everything he could but it was not his day. Marat had to struggle over the simplest blows while his rival, on the contrary, displayed "masterpiece by masterpiece".

"Each service was against me. Fortune favored only my rival," says Safin. Though, of course, he reckons not only on good luck. Now, with thorough training underway, he is confident that hard work will bear fruit and he will have a chance in the future to win an Open in France.

Marat is sceptical about his performance on grass courts this season. "I can't move on the grass and feel I can fall down any moment. It makes me crazy So I am afraid even a good service will not help me out (he performed a service with a speed of 252 kilometers per hour in the match against Robredo)," said Safin.

Safin says he met his luck many years ago when one wealthy man learnt about him from his acquaintance and, without meeting Safin personally, spent $300,000 over five years to sponsor his upgrading . "If it were not for him I might have been earning my living by picking up empty bottles in the streets," says Marat Safin.