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Arthurs making most of his chance
By Jon Wertheim, Sports Illustrated
Take 101st-ranked Wayne Arthurs, for instance. The Australian's four-set defeat of countryman Jason Stoltenberg is strictly an agate result in the U.S., worthy perhaps of a paragraph in certain precincts of Melbourne. The match was played on Court 10 before maybe 100 fans. Yet for Arthurs, it was momentous. After a mediocre season in which he has won less than $70,000, he had to qualify to make the main draw. Armed with a 130-plus-mph lefty serve that's harder to read than James Joyce, Arthurs upset second seed Gustavo Kuerten the other day. It was, he reckons, the biggest win of his career, but he tried desperately not to rest on his laurels. He knew another round would mean a guaranteed $35,000 payday and, likely, a big enough haul in ranking points to get into the main draw of the 2001 Australian Open without a demeaning wild card. Arthurs got off to a slow start Friday, suffering an early break and dropping the first set 6-2. "I thought, This is going to be a pretty quick day,'" he said. But the patient, 29-year-old vet steadied himself and played some big points, winning a second-set tiebreaker. After that he cruised in the last two sets. "The serve started to pick up a little bit," he said in summary. "I just changed it around in the second set and sort of got on top of him after that." A player who was ranked outside the top 1,000 as recently as three years ago, Arthurs now faces another Aussie, Richard Fromberg, in the third round. Not only are he and Fromberg mates, to use the vernacular, but they even share a coach, former pro Brett Larkham, and have practiced together nearly every day for the past six months. A win here and Arthur is likely to play yet another Aussie, Mark Philippoussis, for a shot at the quarters and a $110,000 payday. Arthurs, though, knows better than to look ahead. "It's a one-match-at-a-time thing," he said. "It would be great [making it to the second week]. If that happens to be, it happens to be." Still, by picking up a win Friday that won't register on many fans' radar screens, his year just got a whole lot better.
Half volleysHow good a doubles player is Martina Hingis? Last night she and Jan-Michael Gambill dropped just five games to defending Wimbledon champs Kim Po and Donald Johnson (insert Nash Bridges joke here). ... Speaking of Hingis, she committed a ghastly five unforced errors in her clinical dismissal of Tathiana Garbin. That's one more than she ceded to Kristina Brandi the Wednesday night. ... As Anna Kournikova and Jennifer Capriati left the court after their doubles win Wednesday, Capriati had a sour look on her face. "Wave to the crowd," Kournikova instructed her. On cue, Capriati suddenly smiled and saluted the fans. ... Sandrine Testud's 6-0, 6-1 rout of Kristie Boogert went so quickly that Testud and her coach/husband marched right to the practice courts for an extra hitting session. ... 19 American men were in the main draw. Should Gambill lose to Philippoussis Friday night, only two -- Sampras and Todd Martin -- will remain.
Sports Illustrated staff writer Jon Wertheim will file daily reports from the Open.
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