Safin Runs Away With Inaugural Euro Series Title

With David Nalbandian's injury pull-out from the Masters Series-Paris this week, Marat Safin was assured the Euro Series title, with even first-round losing points enough to overtake the Argentine.

Instead, Safin responded by winning the MS-Paris, and becoming the first champion of the Euro Series, joining Lleyton Hewitt who won the inaugural US Open Series leading to the US Open.

For his effort Safin receives the $25.00 (USD) grand prize, and 50 percent of the Euro Series fan-funded prize fund, which results in a substantial $39.00 added to the Russian's 2004 prize total. The second-place finisher Nalbandian receives $10.00 plus 30 percent of the prize fund for a total of $18.40.

Another Russian took third place in Mikhail Youzhny, who put in a quarterfinal effort at the MS-Paris to edge finalist Radek Stepanek, who for his fourth place Euro Series finish receives absolutely nothing but a handshake. Youzny for his third place effort receives $5.50 plus 20 percent of the prize fund, equaling a nice take-home sum of $11.10.

The remainder of the Top 10 final Euro Series Standings were No. 5 Feliciano "F-Lo" Lopez, No. 6 Guillermo Canas, No. 7 Robin Soderling, No. 8 Ivan Ljubicic, No. 9 Andre Agassi, and No. 10 Tommy Haas.

"The whole Euro Series went pretty much as envisioned, with our strategy to stay under the media radar, but at the same time to reward the players, and the fans," said Tennis-X CEO Luke Johnson. "The spotlight shone brightly on these European indoor events. For next year we are already planning a greatly increased number of model ball-girls, this time clothes optional. You could never get away with that in the U.S., another plus for the Euro Series."

The nine events that comprised the Tennis-X Euro Series in 2004 were the Grand Prix de Tennis de Lyon (France), the BA-CA Tennis Trophy (Vienna, Austria), the Open de Maselle (Metz, France), the Kremlin Cup (Moscow, Russia), the Masters Series-Madrid (Spain), the Davidoff Swiss Indoors (Basel, Switzerland), the if...Stockholm Open (Sweden), the St. Petersburg Open (Russia), and the Masters Series-Paris (France), all leading to the season-ending Masters Cup in Houston.

The checks, as they say, are in the mail.

"We'd like to thank everyone for their support of the Euro Series," said Johnson, who will preside at the award ceremony at the Masters Cup. "We figure, with the center court security guards changing shifts at 2:30 p.m. every day at the Masters Cup, we have a five-minute window to get Marat quickly out for the trophy presentation. You're going to see one big cardboard check and one happy Russian."