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Argentines flex their muscles
http://www.sina.com.cn 2004/06/03 12:37  Shanghai Daily

  Gustavo Kuerten's love affair with Roland Garros turned sour yesterday as the three-time champion was upended in the quarterfinals by Argentina's David Nalbandian.

  Kuerten has led a charmed life at the French Open since his unlikely run to the first of his trio of titles in 1997, but his luck deserted him on center court as he fell 2-6, 6-3, 4-6, 6-7 (6).

  The Brazilian's samba style was silenced. Instead the center court pulsed to the tune of the tango.

  Nalbandian joins compatriots Gaston Gaudio and Guillermo Coria in the last four - the first time there have been three Argentine semifinalists at a grand slam tournament. Briton Tim Henman completes the line-up.

  "It's truly unbelievable," Nalbandian said.

  Spain had three men's semifinalists at Roland Garros two years ago.

  "This is like a history event - an unbelievable week," Gaudio said. "Maybe an Argentinian guy is going to take the final, and it's going to be like a dream."

  Paola Suarez of Argentina is in the women's final four and will face Elena Dementieva today.

  Former world No. 1 Kuerten had never lost to a fellow South American in a grand slam tournament but Nalbandian proved too solid from the baseline.

  "Everybody knows what it means to me to play in this tournament," Kuerten said as he left the court. "I had a tough time today. Today he made me run a lot and I really suffered."

  In the day's other quarterfinal, Lleyton Hewitt found that unflinching determination and bottomless heart were insufficient as his claycourt failings were exploited by Gaudio.

  The resolve on which the Australian has built his career was of little use against an Argentine master who ran rings round him on center court to reach the semifinals 6-3, 6-2, 6-2.

  "He was too good," was Hewitt's candid analysis. "Today I just lost to a guy who was too good.

  "You know, he's very good at any time, but especially today he was able to get that ball back extremely deep, so he didn't give me a lot of chances to actually attack him out there today. He's a class player on this surface."

  For Gaudio, ranked 44th in the world, victory over the former Wimbledon and US Open champion propelled him into his first grand slam semifinal.

  "It has always been my dream to win this tournament," the 25-year-old said. "But there is a long way to go yet because the two most difficult matches are yet to come."

  "I thought I was going to be really nervous," Gaudio said. "But, in fact, I was not at all."

  His biggest stumble came in the second game of the final set, when he slipped and fell chasing a shot and scraped his knee on the clay.

  Blood still trickled down his shin after the match, but his strokes were unaffected. The baseliner finished with 27 winners and just 19 errors, and he won 20 of 21 points at the net, playing serve-and-volley to close out two games.

  Coria faces Henman in the other semifinal. Coria comfortably saw off Carlos Moya on Tuesday while Henman became the first British man in more than 40 years to reach the French Open semifinals.

  While Coria is the tournament favorite, Henman is a fast-court player with four Wimbledon semifinals behind him. He had never progressed beyond the fourth round of any grand slam tournament outside of Wimbledon, and had never won more than two matches in any of his nine previous visits to Roland Garros.

  If Tuesday belonged to Henman, yesterday was Nalbandian's day.

  The 22-year-old barely put a foot wrong on a windswept center court in Paris. Try as Kuerten might, he was unable to repel the sturdy Argentine who bombarded him with forehand after forehand, punching the ball deeper and deeper into the corners.

  (Reuters/AP)




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