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Out of nowhere Kuerten's game comes around just in time
Posted: Tuesday June 06, 2000 04:28 PM
PARIS (AP) -- It was a three-hour slugfest between two former French Open champions, and until the middle of the fourth set, Gustavo Kuerten was nowhere to be seen. So sayeth Yevgeny Kafelnikov, the Russian blasted off the court when the 23-year-old Brazilian Kuerten showed up with a vengeance to pull out the match, 6-3, 3-6, 4-6, 6-4, 6-2. A noisy, pro-Kuerten crowd hollered his nickname -- "Guga Guga Guga" -- and waved Brazil's green, yellow and blue flag as the 1997 French Open champion found the rhythm that had been missing in the first three sets. He cranked up his first serve, fired a few aces, took command of the net and ripped a string of passing shots past Kafelnikov to earn a berth in the semifinals Friday. "I had the match in my hands and basically gave it away," Kafelnikov said. "Up until 4-2 in the fourth set, Gustavo was nowhere to be seen. He didn't do anything until the fourth set. I just lost it." Kafelnikov denied that fatigue might have been a factor in his defeat. He played 196 games -- three five-setters and one four-set match -- and played 12 hours and 53 minutes to reach Tuesday's quarterfinal. Kuerten said he thought Kafelnikov may have been tired mentally. "It's more mental than physical. It's tough to have a chance like he did in the fourth set, and he was probably thinking that he missed a chance to already be off the court," he said. The statistics say it all: 95 unforced errors for Kafelnikov compared to Kuerten's 56, and 14 aces for the Brazilian while Kafelnikov put in only six. The first three sets were laborious baseline duels, the players groaning and grunting as the sun played hide and seek for the first time in days. Both plaers required treatment after the third set. One trainer massaged Kuerten's legs while another changed a bandage on Kafelnikov's blister. "I was nervous, and my muscles were stiff. I wasn't moving at all, not the way I should be," Kuerten said. Kafelnikov, the 1996 champion who was bounced in the second round last year, gave no excuses for letting the match slip away. "The blister on my foot didn't bother me and I wasn't tired," he said. "At 4-2, 15-40, for some weird reason, I played two loose points. I got unlucky, the ball just traveled a few inches, then it was 4-3. I thought the match can turn around, but not in such a dramatic way, that that basically I was going to win only one out of six service games until the end of the match." Kuerten meets Juan Carlos Ferrero of Spain who beat countryman Alex Corretja 6-4, 6-4, 6-2 in other quarterfinal action. Argentina's Franco Squillari beat Younes El Aynaoui of Morocco 6-4, 6-1, 6-3 in a rain-delayed fourth-round match to reach the quarterfinals, where he meets Albert Costa of Spain. Earlier Tuesday, Costa beat Australia's Lleyton Hewitt 6-3, 4-6, 6-2, 6-4 in a three-hour, fourth-round match. Magnus Norman of Sweden takes on Russia's Marat Safin in other quarterfinal action Wednesday.
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