Safin honoured to shake Maradona's Hand of God

MOSCOW, Dec 2 (Reuters) Former tennis world number one Marat Safin said today he was honoured to meet Diego Maradona, who is attending this weekend's Davis Cup final between Russia and Argentina.

Safin, a big Spartak Moscow fan, met the former World Cup-winning captain for the first time at Moscow's Olympic arena today.

''I have never met Maradona before, I only watched him on television,'' Safin told reporters after teaming up with Dmitry Tursunov to beat David Nalbandian and Agustin Calleri in the doubles and give Russia a 2-1 lead in the three-day tie.

''It was a great honour for me to shake his hand with which he scored that famous goal in the World Cup,'' added the Russian.

Maradona scored the first of his two goals with his hand in Argentina's 2-1 quarter-final win over England in the 1986 World Cup finals in Mexico. He later called it the ''Hand of God''.

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