GUGA DESTROYS RAFTER IN CINCY

Kuerten belongs at No. 1

By Sandra Harwitt
tennisreporters.net

Susan Mullane Camerawork USA, Inc.

MASON, OHIO, AUG. 13 – For any of you who might be cynics out there, let tennisreporters.net assure you that Gustavo Kuerten is the real deal.

It’s neither a fluke of nature nor a fluke of the ATP computer that the spindly Brazilian is the No. 1 player in the world. Further proof that Kuerten, who won his third French Open trophy this June, deserves his lofty status came at the Tennis Masters Series-Cincinnati.
Long heralded as the classiest of clay court players – no surprise that he owns three Roland Garros honors – Kuerten has transformed his game way past the sandbox playground of clay.

Gone are the days that this 24-year-old appeared lost on hard courts or indoor surfaces. Today he continued to prove he's mastered the cement and is as dangerous on the surface as any pro.

“It’s experience and the work on the court,” said Kuerten, explaining his ability to adjust his game to an all-around style. “Things are much clearer and easier for me to adapt and to play my best game. I had to play and maybe lose a lot of matches and then work on what I saw was important. I didn’t really have to change what I’ve been doing, just practicing what works better and what should be my mentality on the hard courts.”

Just one look at Kuerten against Patrick Rafter, the savviest of serve-and-volleyers, in the Cincinnati final proved the Brazilian could take on anybody, anyplace. He not only pummeled Rafter with his deepest of groundstrokes and the ability to whiz passing shots by the Aussie off of both flanks, but he scored big with his serve, now a major weapon, his more than credible volley and very adept return-of-serves.

And the whole 6-1 6-3 deed took a flat one-hour to perform. And on top of that, Kuerten wasn’t quite as fresh as a daisy like Rafter, who was tucked into bed with lights out by 11:30 PM on Saturday evening. In contrast, Kuerten was still at the tennis complex until after midnight when tournament officials finally decided on the obvious – the thunderstorms in the area were not going to stop anytime soon and the semifinal match between Kuerten and Henman – Kuerten won the first set 6-2 and Henman had a 5-1 advantage in the second set – would have to be completed on Sunday morning.

So by the time Kuerten stared at Rafter across the net, he had already been on court for 50-minutes to secure the semifinal win over Henman 6-2, 1-6, 7-6 (7-4) and only had a brief 18-minute break in-between matches. Proud of his performance on Sunday, Kuerten had only one concern, saying, “I was happy, but maybe the only thing I didn’t do right was for the crowd. Maybe I was playing the final too fast.”

As far as Rafter was concerned, Kuerten never spoke truer words, admitting he never had a glimmer of a chance to even get into the match. The loss was particularly difficult for Rafter to swallow since it was his third straight tournament final defeat in the past few weeks – he fell in his second consecutive Wimbledon final to Goran Ivanisevic and then was upset by Andrei Pavel in the Montreal final one week ago.

“I guess the whole rhythm of the match, I had no control over it,” Rafter concluded. “Everything that I did, he sort of had an answer for. What I needed was just a little time. I needed the match to go a little bit longer for me to be able to work my way into it and take a couple of chances. I never got myself into that situation. The match got away too quickly in the second set for me and then panic starts setting in.”

In a moving part of the award ceremony, Kuerten made sure to acknowledge Father’s Day, which was celebrated on Sunday in Brazil. He thanked the four father figures of his life – his deceased father, his older brother and frequent traveling companion Rafael, his longtime coach Larri Passos, and his mother because she took on the role of both parents after his father died.

He should also be thankful that a kid from the beachside locale of Florianapolis has gone way beyond his dreams of winning local tournaments in his hometown to become the best tennis player in the world. The only demerit that tennisreporters.net could bestow on the Brazilian is that he planned his summer vacation during Wimbledon this year. While Kuerten has explained that time off as a way to keep himself from getting too tired from the strain of life on the tour and as a preventative action to keep himself from overworking a thigh injury sustained earlier in the year, playing Wimbledon should be the responsibility of the world No. 1. The four Grand Slams are the crown jewels of tennis and the top players, barring injury, should try their hand at all of them.

If Kuerten needs inspiration for this truism, he should look at Pete Sampras, who still shows up at the French Open with dreams of conquering a surface he still is uncomfortable performing on. And the truth is, if the draw worked out in his favor, tennisreporters.net would not be surprised to see Kuerten sail into the semifinals at Wimbledon with his arsenal of weapons.