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Super Sjeng Schalken in first Slam semifinal after winning five-setterPosted: Thursday September 05, 2002 7:00 PMUpdated: Thursday September 05, 2002 9:37 PM
NEW YORK (AP) -- Soft-serving Sjeng Schalken won Thursday's "other" quarterfinal, beating Fernando Gonzalez before an all-American glamor match at the U.S. Open. Schalken reached his first semifinal in 30 Grand Slam tournaments with a 6-7 (5), 6-3, 6-3, 6-7 (5), 7-6 (2) win over Fernando Gonzalez, playing in his first Grand Slam quarterfinal. Their 3-hour, 43-minute match ended about an hour before Pete Sampras' straight-set rout of 20-year-old Andy Roddick. Smacking aces at over 130 mph, covering every inch of the net, Sampras looked like the younger man and dominated an apparently awestruck Roddick 6-3, 6-2, 6-4 to reach the U.S. Open semifinals for the eighth time. The profiles of Schalken and Gonzalez are considerably lower. Schalken is seeded 24th and never reached a Grand Slam quarterfinal until he did it on his 29th try this year at Wimbledon, where he was the only player to take a set from champion Lleyton Hewitt. Gonzalez, seeded 28th, was in his first Grand Slam quarterfinal and bidding to become the first player from Chile to reach the Open semifinals. "I didn't expect this, to be in the semis," Schalken said. "I'm now a little bit more relaxed than before the quarterfinals." Schalken won the match on a breezy day when he finally held on to a big lead in a tiebreaker. He led the first tiebreaker 5-1 and the second 5-3 and lost them both. "You have to win one, of course" to win the match, Schalken said. He went ahead 6-0 in the last one before Gonzalez got the next two points. On the next point, Gonzalez returned Schalken's serve wide, making Schalken the first Dutchman to reach the Open semifinals since Tom Okker in 1971. "I said to myself, 'Go for it. The first six points you're with the wind,"' he said of the tiebreaker. Schalken won his fifth match in the tournament after winning a total of seven in his previous seven U.S. Opens. But he failed at critical times. He committed his only two double faults of the match in the fourth-set tiebreaker. He matched Gonzalez with 12 aces, but Gonzalez also had 12 double faults. Schalken's fastest serve was just 110 mph, compared with 130 mpg for Gonzalez. "I don't have the speed. I don't have that in my arm," the
6-foot-3 Schalken said. "I tried that many times, but I get
injuries."
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