NORMAN REACHED NO. 2 four years ago

A Magnus retrospective: Norman retires
The Swede in '00: 'It's great to be compared to Borg, Edberg and Wilander'

By Matthew Cronin, TennisReporters.net

ATP/Robert Zolles

'00 Roland Garros finalist Magnus Norman retires at 28 after a number of injuries.

2000 Roland Garros finalist and former world No. 2 Magnus Norman retired on Thursday due to a plethora of injuries, the worst which was a bad hip that he had operation on. The 28-year-old Norman won 12 career titles.

"I've had three tough years with injuries and this is a decision that I actually feel good about," Norman said.

The following two articles were written in 2000. The first was written prior to Roland Garros after Norman had won Rome.

The second is a review of the '00 French men's draw, where Norman nearly won his first Slam but fell to Gustavo Kuerten.

Can new Swede on the block
conquer Roland Garros like Borg?
He's a quiet blonde who's strong as an ox and can seemingly dominate a baseline exchange at will. Swede Magnus Norman doesn't have Bjorn Borg's golden locks, Stefan Edberg's tenacious volley or Mats Wilander's retrieving ability, but he has more stick on his groundstrokes than the aforementioned legends and after winning the Master Series - Rome crown last week and taking over the No. 1 spot in the ATP Champions race, he declared himself one of the frontrunners to win Roland Garros.

"I'm leading the race now. Everybody wants to catch me for the moment, and I know going into the French that I can win the title," said the 23-year-old Filpstad native, who beat Gustavo Kuerten 6-3, 4-6, 6-4, 6-4 in the Rome final. "I've won [Rome] and it's a great feeling. But it doesn't change my personality at all. Maybe it changes the way I look at the French Open. Because now I know that I can beat a good guy like Kuerten in a big final."

The 6-foot-2 son of two former Swedish athletes (father, Lief, played bandy – a game similar to ice hockey – and mother, Lena, swam for the national team), Norman coolly displayed his sportsman's genes in 1999 by winning five titles and toppling the likes of Yevgeny Kafelnikov, Alex Corretja and Marcelo Rios. However, before this year, the modest Monte Carlo resident had never gotten beyond the fourth round of a Grand Slam nor won a prestigious ATP Master Series title.

But Norman began the year in stellar fashion, winning the title in Auckland and reaching her first Slam semi at the Australian Open, where he upset Nicolas Kiefer in the quarterfinals. Norman has boomed in his big first serve with remarkable consistency this year, adding more firepower to his vicious inside-the-baseline attack. Strangely, Norman traces his growing success to an early round victory at Wimbledon '99, when he took out tricky Frenchman Fabrice Santoro.

"I felt like at Wimbledon, everything clicked," he said. "Even though I lost to Greg Rusedski in the next round, I felt like the new Magnus Norman....My coach and I were working very hard up to Wimbledon on me being aggressive, taking the ball early. I was doing that in practice but never in a match. Even though I won a lot, I felt like there was something missing. And all of a sudden against Santoro, everything clicked and I felt like, "Hey, this is the way I should play, the way I should approach the game.' Ever since, I've been playing superbly, I've been really satisfied."
Norman has thousands of kilometers to go before he accurately be mentioned in the same breath with the likes of Borg, Wilander and Edberg and their combined 24 Grand Slam titles. Yet like Wilander and Borg, Norman won Rome, giving him a foothold in the strong legacy of Scandinavian tennis. "It's great to be compared to Borg, Edberg and Wilander," said Norman, who as a junior trained at the same club Borg did. "Hopefully I can play like this throughout the year and the comparison will be even more [relevant]."

Even though Norman is leading the 2000 points race, he won't pay homage to himself. "I don't want to say I'm No. 1 in the world. I'm leading the race and that's something that I never would have dreamed about after four or five months. I'm obviously very proud about that."

Norman is scheduled to play Dusseldorf the week prior to Roland Garros but said he plans on arriving in Paris as fresh as a daisy. "I'm pretty strong physically and mentally," he said. "So once the French is there, I'm going to be 100 percent motivated."

Roland Garros '00: Kuerten digs deep to win his 2nd Roland Garros title over Norman
When your nickname is Guga-which brings to mind the sound an infant makes when he is hungry – it's tough to get respect. Despite your billion dollar smile, sandy lion's mane and '97 French title, you are not perceived as a tough-as-nails favorite. Rather, some paint you as a one Slam wonder and momentum player; a surf boy from a kick-back Brazilian town who laughs too much in defeat; a circus performer who can razzle-dazzle with his slight of hand tricks, but who only walked the tightrope once blindfolded.

So what if Gustavo Kuerten came into Roland Garros as the most impressive performer of 2000, especially on clay? Unlike three years ago, when he came into Paris as a virtual unknown, opponents knew his game and, that eventually, over a two-week period, they would snap the rail-thin 23-year-old and his aching back into pieces.

But Guga wanted to prove he had the guts to go into a tournament as a leading contender and come out with his shield and pride intact. After conquering Magnus Norman 6-2, 6-3, 2-6, 7-6(6) in a three-hour, 44-minute clay court version of the film "Gladiator," the modest Guga said it was now time to mention his name with the likes of multiple Slam title holders Agassi (blistered in the second round by Karol Kucera), Sampras (shot down by the Scud in the first round), and Kafelnikov (choked against Guga). "This is a certificate that I'm really one of the top players," said Kuerten. "People maybe talk that I won that one time and that's it, I'm finished. Right now my name is again in history. I am one of the players that can stay for a long time. "

Earlier this year, Kuerten had reached two Masters Series finals and won Hamburg. Yet, when Roland Garros began, he wasn't called the man to beat. "The toughest time I had was at the beginning. I knew I had to win seven matches," Kuerten said. "It's so tough here. Before I started, I had confidence, but I wasn't sure that I was going to do great ....Sampras has to play like this many times, at Wimbledon, in the U.S. Open. I'm here for the third time playing as a contender. Maybe I'm never going to be the favorite to win this tournament."

Kuerten's first real test came in the third round, when, in a titanic struggle on Court Central that ended just as the sun was setting, he overcame gritty Michael Chang 6-1, 6-7(9), 6-1, 6-4 in three hours. Chang liked Kuerten's title chances. "For the most part, he's the one hitting the heavier ball, which is really important on clay because a lot of times you have to hit three to five shots to put a ball away." Guga's victory over No. 11 Nicolas Lapentti set up a classic rematch of the '97 final with the raging Russian, Yevgeny Kafelnikov, who predicted that he would grind down Guga. "You guys think he'll [beat me], but I don't think so," Kafelnikov warned the media. "If he's going to beat me, he's going to have to go through the hard way. That I promise you."

Kafelnikov seemed to be making good on his vow, brilliantly approaching the net off Kuerten's backhand and slamming home volleys. Then "Mr. Second Week," (as Kafelnikov likes to call himself), found himself up two sets and serving at 4-2, 40-15 in the fourth set. All of a sudden, the Russian began to gag and spewed errors like the Chernobyl nuclear reactor, going down 6-3, 3-6, 4-6, 6-4, 6-2. "That was my worst nightmare. He was controlling the match. Somehow things changed. After that I played more relaxed.," said Guga who added after that victory, he believed he could pass any test.

Believe it or not, Guga was a slight underdog in his semi against Juan "El Mosquito" Ferrero, a 20-year-old Spaniard ranked No. 16 who bit Mark Philippoussis and Alex Corretja, among others. Ferrero is a big-time player with quick feet, a fearsome forehand, blinding return of serve and rock solid backhand. But Ferrero's first primetime appearance on Center Court proved too much for him, as Kuerten survived a grueling three-hour, 38-minute slugfest 7-5, 4-6, 2-6, 6-4, 6-3. As he was against Kafelnikov, Guga was down a break in the fourth and won a stirring fifth set on pure adrenaline.

NORMAN NEEDS TO EARN RESPECT
Like Kuerten, the fast-rising Swede Magnus Norman also had problems getting respect. A quiet blonde who's strong as an ox and can seemingly dominate a baseline exchange at will, Norman doesn't have Borg's golden locks, Edberg's tenacious volley or Wilander's retrieving ability, but he has more stick on his groundstrokes. After winning the Rome crown two weeks before Roland Garros, he took over the No. 1 spot in the ATP Champions race. In Paris, Medvedev called him the "so-called No. 1," while Kafelnikov listed him merely as the fifth-best in the world.

The 6-foot-2 son of former athletes, Norman is a training nut who admires fellow workaholic Jim Courier, and is proud of his six hours a day workouts. Instead of letting Medvedev get inside his head in the fourth round, he kicked clay all over the Ukranian's bald spot 6-0, 6-4, 6-2. Norman's next test came in the form of Russian strongman Marat Safin. Magnus bent, cramped, but he didn't break, overcoming his own nerves and a distraught Safin 6-4, 6-3, 4-6, 7-5. Safin was nearly suicidal. "I came on to the court like a loser. How are you going to play like that? I had too many minuses in my head. I played like crap. Nothing was under control. I played like this because I was scared, my eyes were this big."

Norman's quick thrashing of overmatched Argentine Franco Squillari (a Vilas-Muster-Gomez admirer) in the semis was a snooze and for almost three hours, so was his final against Guga. The pair turned what was a rather hum-drum affair into a match of historic proportions, when Norman dug down deep and forced Kuerten to use 11 match points before Norman barely missed a forehand down the line, giving the gregarious Brazilian to his second French Open title.

Although he denied it later, Norman was bundled with nerves during the first two sets, unable to get his legs moving and spewing errors all over the court. For his part, Kuerten played conservatively and intelligently, returning deep with heavy topspin and patiently waiting for his chances to rip down-the-line winners or go crosscourt with a hooking forehand.

But the sweaty Swede sucked it up and gradually punched his way into the match, winning the third set behind his sidewinder forehand. Kuerten appeared to tire in the fourth set, but down a break at 2-4, Guga regained his fire, breaking back and holding serve for a 5-4 lead.

It was then that history struck. With Norman facing his first match point at 4-5, he hit an inside-out forehand that Kuerten thought landed wide. But the umpire ruled the ball good, angering Kuerten, who thought he had won. "People were enjoying the match so much that they asked me to play more," Guga said. "There were amazing points, a terrific atmosphere. Every point was big from 4-4. I was sure the umpire was wrong [on my first match point]. But you cannot hold on, you have to let it go. Every time I was near that line, I kept seeing that ball out. I lost my patience."

WELCOME TO TENNIS NIRVANA
Thus began 43 minutes of tennis nirvana, a Knights of the Roundtable rumble that brought Paris to a standstill. Norman fought off another match point and then on game point, another close call went against Guga when he hit a forehand deep in the court that was first called good, but an overrule gave Norman the point and the game, evening the set at 5-5.

Both men then got down in the trenches and refused to budge, with the broad-shouldered Swede saving four more championship points serving at 5-6 with a series of gutsy winners, finally winning the 24-point game when an anxious Kuerten buried a backhand into the net.

Norman could have taken control of the tiebreaker if he would have raced out to an early lead, but Guga was always a step ahead of him, quickly constructing a 3-0 lead. The Brazilian's wheezing lawnmower grunt began to shake the stadium and he pushed his tired frame beyond the limits. Behind his on-again, off-again bulldozer forehand, Norman battled back to 3-3, but Guga gnashed his teeth, wristed more topspin on his deep drives and again put his foe in a hole, going up 6-3. But Norman would conquer again, muscling Guga into three errors. At 6-6, Kuerten crushed a service winner and then won the match after the Swede's errant forehand, his 82nd unforced error. "Every time I thought I was going to win, and then it was one more, and one more, and one more," said Kuerten, who took over the lead in the ATP Champion's race. "Everything began here for me [in '97]. I appeared in the world for the first time out of nowhere. I started to live my dreams then and now another dream has come true."