Mr Unpredictable the one to watch

Can't play on grass? Against Srichapan, who won in Nottingham on the surface last year and who is exactly the sort of dangerous floater any contender wants to avoid, Safin was awesome, taking the Thai a p a r t 6-2, 6-4, 6-4 not just through the sheer power generated by his 6ft 4 i n , 1 4 s t frame but by all-court prof i c i e n c y which was as impressive as anything Federer had offered on the same court earlier.

On this evidence, he is an outstanding contender. But this is the great enigma we're talking about so if he emerges tomorrow with any hint of the familiar old selfdoubt, he has just the secondround opponent to make him pay, Mark Philippoussis. Yes, the wild one versus the Aussie wild card. Get out your tin hats, this should be fun ... 135mph fun. Philippoussis, naturally, is the one non-seed they all wanted to sidestep as his straightforward 7-5, 6-4, 6-2 firstround victory over the potentially troublesome Slovakian world No45 Karol Beck demonstrated last night.

An unlikely finallist just two years ago, the bloke who keeps coming back from injuries only to be written off once more because of his battered body - this year it's been a torn ankle ligament and a bad back as his ranking has slumped to 142 - may have more surprises left for us. Why not?

Philippoussis is still only 28 even though it seems he has been scudding around these lawns for eons.

Yet Philippoussis would have wanted to bypass Safin at this stage just as much. "He's d e f i n i t e l y looking more comfortable on grass," noted the Aussie. In theory, Safin's Australian win over Lleyton Hewitt, a barnstorming triumph to prove that his US Open final pummelling of Pete Sampras five years earlier was no fluke, should have been the platform for him to launch a concerted attack on Federer's hegemony.

Instead, as he reflected gloomily last night: "Everyone started expecting miracles of me," and Safin's form deteriorated rapidly.

The more he tried, the more defensive his play became and the worse the results. Coming into the grass-court tournament at Halle a fortnight ago, he hadn't reached a quarter-final since Melbourne and thought: "I'd lost it completely."

Yet on his hated turf, he reached the final, pushing Federer in a final set, which is as close as anyone has got to denting the Swiss's 30-game unbeaten run on grass. It was all achieved despite a damaged knee ligament which he'll have to rest and get treated for a month after Wimbledon just to salvage the rest of his season.

Halle, he reckons, changed everything and the championships certainly would be cheered by a good run for a crazy Russian who's as likely to drop his shorts in disgust - remember last year's French Open - as to give even Goran Ivanisevic lessons in racquet smashing etiquette.

Remember the comment from Russia's ambassador to Australia during Safin's successful run in Melbourne: "Not only is Marat a beautiful tennis player. We also love him because he is a very naughty boy away from the courts. He loves fast cars and beautiful women and that is good."

For the moment, though, he seems pre-occupied with tennis. "Finally I have the confidence. Now I need to hold it," he said last night, sounding of course as if he had no confidence whatsoever. Still, if he could hang around long enough for us to properly embrace him, it could be Wimbledon's turn to love the naughty boy too.