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Oh so close Martin one step from a Grand Slam title
Posted: Saturday September 11, 1999 08:39 PM
NEW YORK (AP) -- He didn't have to play Pete Sampras or Patrick Rafter. His third-round opponent withdrew after one set. Saturday's semifinal against Cedric Pioline was a breeze. Still, it wouldn't be entirely accurate to say Todd Martin had an easy path to the U.S. Open finals. The 29-year-old American beat Pioline 6-4, 6-1, 6-2 in the semifinals, taking just 96 minutes to earn the chance to play Andre Agassi, who beat Yevgeny Kafelnikov 1-6, 6-3, 6-3, 6-3 later in the day. It was a rare cakewalk for Martin, who had taken five sets and three tiebreakers to get past qualifier Stephane Huet in the first round. "As much as anything, it gives me some confidence. I played a very solid three sets of tennis," he said. "I'm certainly not going to suffer from having less court time today." Suffering is something Martin knows a little bit about. He was so weakened by dehydration during a Davis Cup match against Australian Lleyton Hewitt this summer that he lost 10 of the last 11 games to drop their opening singles match. Warming up for reverse singles against Rafter on another broiling day, Martin felt weak and tried to withdraw; when a doctor wouldn't OK it, Martin blew a two-set lead to lose the match. He needed intravenous fluids again after coming back from a two-set deficit to beat Greg Rusedski in the fourth round on Tuesday night. And that's just this year. Other Martin collapses -- both literal and figurative -- include fainting from the heat on the steps of the U.S. Capitol during the 1997 Davis Cup draw. There was also a loss to MaliVai Washington in the 1996 Wimbledon semifinals despite serving for the match with a 5-1 lead in the fifth set. "I think, if I do my job right, I learn and better myself from every match," he said. "Those two matches [in the Davis Cup] certainly were opportunities for me to learn some things." As for Wimbledon, "I won't tell you that I don't think about it once in a while. I think about a lot of matches; that's one of them," he said. "But most of my memories are good from the '96 Wimbledon." He'll have even better memories from this year's U.S. Open -- only the second time he has reached the finals of a Grand Slam event. Sampras beat him in straight sets to win the 1994 Australian Open. Martin caught a bit of a break when Sampras and Rafter -- winners of six U.S. Open titles between them, including the last four -- withdrew from the tournament because of injuries. Both would have been in Martin's path to the finals. But don't expect any sympathy from Martin. He's had more than his share of injuries, including elbow surgery that sidelined him for most of 1997. "There were a few moments that I wondered if I'd play again, and a lot of moments where I definitely questioned whether I would be able to play the way I like to play," he said. "Those thoughts stuck with me for another six months to a year." Martin and Pioline struggled to six deuces in their first game before Martin won it. He broke Pioline in the fourth game of the match, but lost his serve in the ninth to put the opening set back on serve. Martin came right back and broke to win the first set 6-4. "I squeaked through a tough first game. From there, I think I started to get a little bit of a rhythm," Martin said. "And I think he lost his." The next two sets posed no such drama. After making 11 unforced errors in the first set, he made only 10 in the next two and took only 54 minutes more to finish off the Frenchman. "If he's about to play that way tomorrow," Pioline said, "I think he has a good chance to win."
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