 |
| |
|
 |
 |
||
 |
 |
||
 |
|||
EVENTS
CENTERS
CNNSI.com GROUP
COMMERCE
|
 |
Seismic showdowns Look for the youngsters to come through in men's draw
Updated: Friday September 07, 2001 5:32 PM
By Richard Deitsch, Sports Illustrated No. 3 Marat Safin vs. No. 10 Pete Sampras
For the legion of us who wrote off Sampras prior to this tournament, the King has come back from the dead in a manner that would make Lazarus blush. Facing Andre Agassi in the quarterfinals, in the best meeting of their 32-match rivalry, Sampras served with mindboggling force and precision. He won 79 percent of his first-serve points (83 of 105) and was an epic swordsman at net, winning an absurd 96 of 137 points. Sampras has now vanquished a pair of former U.S. Open champions in succession, and up next is yet a third one, Safin, whose surgical carving of Sampras in last year's Open final was the worst big-match blowout Sampras has endured in his career. The maddeningly erratic Safin was in the midst of a miserable year (injuries, post-championship angst, the Russian ruble falling -- who knows?) until he suddenly found his game last month in Indianapolis. He has deftly moved through an easy draw -- the only seed he has faced so far was No. 14 Thomas Johansson in the fourth round -- so Sampras will be the first real test for the defending champion. If Safin has his head together -- a big if -- he has huge groundstrokes, including a backhand that looks straight out of an instructional manual. Sampras won't be able to come to net nearly as much as he did against Agassi, which means he'll have to serve lights-out again. Sampras and Safin have met five times in their career, including a matchup at the World Tennis Cup in Dusseldorf earlier this year when Safin got by a game Sampras on clay, 7-6, 7-5. Asking Sampras to climb Mt. Safin, after conquering Pat Rafter and Agassi, seems too much for one player in one tournament -- especially someone now living in his third decade. If he somehow gets by the young Russian, we'll gladly pick the Pistol in the final to complete a draw for the ages. But, regrettably, it's Safin in four. No. 7 Yvegeny Kafelnikov vs. No. 4 Lleyton Hewitt
The Y2K man surprised us with his 1-hour, 32-minute dismantling of Gustavo Kuerten. (Bad two days for Brazil, eh? First the famed futbol team falls to Argentina in a World Cup qualifier, then Guga forgets how to samba in the quarters.) Outside of Roland Garros, Kafelnikov has been something of a dog at the majors, falling to get past the quarters in eight of the 12 non-French Open majors he has played since 1997. But he took out Guga in fewer minutes than American Pie 2 'srun time and now finds himself against the game's toughest fighter in the 20-year-old Hewitt, who survived a five-set war Thursday night against American Andy Roddick. No one gets to more balls than Hewitt, so Kafelnikov, a deft volleyer, would be wise to get to net as much as possible to shorten the rallies. Last year Hewitt reached the semifinals of the Open -- the farthest he'd advanced in a Slam -- and had a set point on his racket against Sampras in the first-set tiebreak before feeling the moment and eventually succumbing. Throughout this week Hewitt has been embroiled in an ugly racial quagmire following his comments to a chair umpire in his second-round match against James Blake. Rather than wilt under the media spotlight and increasing jeers from the New York crowd, Hewitt has improved with every match. Love him or hate him, the young Aussie is a fighter, and he's ready to take the next step in his career. Hewitt in four.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
