Click here to read about Marcos’ glorious run to the 2006 Australian Open final
Marcos Baghdatis is of Lebanese (father) and Greek Cypriot (mother) origin. His father, Christos, migrated to Cyprus from Lebanon, where he met his wife, Andry. His parents own a clothing store in Paramytha, a small village near Limassol. He has a younger sister, Zena, and two elder brothers, Marinos and Petros, who also played Davis Cup for their country. Baghdatis began playing tennis at age five with his father and brothers. He enjoys playing and watching football, and is a supporter of Apollon Limassol in Cyprus. He trained at the Mouratoglou Tennis Academy in Paris on an Olympic Solidarity Youth Development Programme Scholarship since age 13. Currently he is dating Camille Neviere, a French model, who is the stepdaughter of his French coach Guillaume Payre.
Baghdatis's playing style is relaxed and smooth, with no apparent technical weakness in any particular area of his game. His main strength is a powerful forehand, and a natural talent for placement. He can make accurate and powerful down-the-line forehands and cross-court forehands on the run, and often patiently constructs points to get in a position from where he can make outright winners with those shots.
He also has an exuberant and festive on-court presence that frequently rubs off on to the spectators. Baghdatis is a wonderfully ebullient character who radiates immense enjoyment whenever and wherever he plays and has acquired a loyal throng of fans who roar his every winning point.
A minority sport on the eastern Mediterranean island where soccer is king, tennis is associated with the well-heeled. But Baghdatis comes from a working class background.
Visitors to the family home say it is a modest dwelling adorned with Greek Orthodox Christian icons. Baghdatis frequently kisses the gold crucifix hanging round his neck and crosses himself.
But Baghdatis's family says it is heavily in debt from the money spent on Baghdatis's tennis education.
"I am not complaining about it loudly because I want what is best for my boy," said Christos Baghdatis, who migrated to Cyprus from neighboring Lebanon 35 years ago.
The family could not afford tickets to travel to Australia. On Thursday, the Cypriot government said it would pay for them to fly to watch Sunday's final.
Money worries could become a thing of the past. Baghdatis has made $347,000 in prize money so far during his career and he has almost trebled that by reaching the final in Melbourne.
He first picked up a tennis racket when he was five and, aged 14, he was sent to a French boarding school to make the most of his talent.
This time away from his family appeared well-spent when Baghdatis became the world number one junior in 2003. At 54 in the world rankings before the 2006 Australian Open, he is the first Cypriot to feature in the top 100. Cyprus has only about 2000 registered players, at seven or eight clubs. Baghdatis rose to become the No 1 junior in the world, but was given no wildcards or other dispensations.
He played Challengers and qualifying events and grew tougher with every outing. At 2005 Australian Open, he came from qualifying to reach the third round, where he was stopped by Roger Federer.
Almost overnight, Marcos Baghdatis has become the most famous sportsman to call Cyprus home after reaching the final of the 2006 Australian Open, one of the four major tournaments in world tennis.
On breaks from the tennis circuit and his base in France, Baghdatis is a frequent visitor to Tsirion Stadium in Limassol, cheering on his soccer team, first division Apollon Limassol FC. He wears their blue and white t-shirt, emblazoned with the number 1.
Throughout the two-week tournament in Australia, Baghdatis has been adopted by Melbourne's large Greek community who have offered noisy support at all his matches. “It is no surprise that the crowds always warm to this hairy, 20-year-old from Limassol who loves to gesticulate, make funny faces and scold himself when he plays a bad shot," wrote the Cyprus Mail daily in an editorial. In a modern game dominated by unsmiling, cold-faced, totally driven professionals, Marcos is a breath of fresh air on the court.
There is only one cloud on his horizon - the threat of military service. This is compulsory in Cyprus, an island split between its ethnic Greek and Turkish Cypriots since a Turkish invasion in 1974 triggered by a brief Greek-inspired coup.
