Kuerten Wins Replay of French Open Final
In a replay of the 2001 French Open final, Gustavo Kuerten of Brazil and
Alex Corretja of Spain slugged it out for a place in the second round of
the Vodafone singles. The yellow-clad dissemblers barracking for the
defending champion were thrilled to see him go ahead 5-1 in the first
set tiebreak, but their noise had little effect on the cool Spaniard at
this stage. Corretja fought back and took the tiebreak 9-7.
In the second set Kuerten held his serve to go up 5-2 ahead, and then
dropped four games in a row to give Corretja a chance at serving it out.
Storm clouds were rolling up threateningly from the south west, and the
Brazilian fans were suddenly as sombre as the sky. But after seeming
unable to get strings on the ball for four straight games, the Brazilian
broke courageously to force another tiebreak, then took it 7-3 to send
the match into a deciding set.
"I think the first matches are always a little tricky. You're not
feeling comfortable, you still have little doubts. And especially when
you play a guy like Corretja who runs on every shot and never gives up
and has a lot of experience, he managed to come from behind in the first
set, where I had a lot of opportunities.
"In the same way, I did the same thing to him in the second set when he
was serving for the match there. I was able to come back and win the
tie-break and kept myself going. I knew I would face a very tough
opponent in a tough match. I finished playing perfect tennis in the last
game," said Kuerten.
With so much at stake in the third, it may have been unreasonable to
expect anything other than conservative play, but rally after rally was
won with clean, hard-hit winners. Kuerten prevailed 7-5 at the death,
and the crowd applauded Corretja's magnificent fighting performance with
real warmth.
"Sometimes you have this sort of matches when you get through and you
get confidence afterwards, and you think I did good things, but needed a
few more to win. I would have loved to have win it, just to have one
more chance to play.
At least I went out on the court giving 100 per cent. Realistically, it
is a great match for me. The last few times I played him, I hardly won a
set. Today showed that I must have improved the last few months. Here I
had a lot of chances," said former world number two, Corretja.
For perhaps the first time ever in Auckland, all four qualifiers have
made it through to the second round.
Gilles Muller of Luxembourg (20 years old), beat Nicolas Lapentti of
Ecuador 7-5 6-7 (4) 6-1. Lapentti is a former world number 6, and
Luxemburg is not known as a stronghold of the sport. Muller was the
only qualifier to drop a set.
Mario Ancic of Croatia (19) is no bunny, having advanced into the later
stages of Grand Slam tournaments on the back of his big serve and
wingspan. He disposed of New Zealand wild card Simon Rea emphatically,
6-2 6-1. German qualifier Philipp Kohlschreiber (20) took out Peru's
Luis Horna 6-4 6-3, and Dutchman Fred Hemmes Jr. (22) humbled Robin
Soderling of Sweden 6-2 6-3.
