NEWS
OTHER SPORTS
DIARY
PEOPLE
MATCH REPORTS
SLIDE SHOW
ARCHIVES

Sampras, Pierce burn, then crumble

Dhritiman Hui

The heat felled the first prima donna of the French Open on the third day of the championships. Mary Pierce, the eighth seed, and sharing a tempestuous love-hate relationship with her home crowd for the last three years, succumbed to exhaustion in her second round match against Conchita Martinez in three sets.

After breezing through her first set, her power game started to diminish in intensity halfway into the second set. Serving at 2-3, the French belle, suddenly stopped play and called for the attentions of the doctor, whose services she had utilised once already in the match, to treat the blisters on her foot. After pouring a generous amount of water on her head, she decided to go off court. Three minutes passed, and umpire Jane Harvey made apparent her irk over the delay. Pierce finally came on court, but two points into the next game, she decided to stop and change rackets, which earned her an immediate penalty point.

She went on to hold serve just once more in the set, as her strength slowly seemed to ebb, and Martinez's game continued to get more and more brazen. Immediately after conceding the set 3-6, she decided to go on a mysterious bathroom break, at which Conchita was none too enthused. She asked the umpire if her French opponent was allowed to do anything she wanted to.

The crowd didn't take too kindly to this display either, breaking into boos and jeers, which only gained in volume as Pierce went down without a semblance of a fight 3-6 in the last set amidst plenty of of her trademark on court histrionics, which prompted the Spaniard to scream from the other end of the court, "Come on, Mary!"

Two hours and forty minutes of some of the most farcical tennis later, Pierce broke thousands of French hearts and walked off court to a constant boo from the crowd.

Pete Sampras had to postphone his dreams by yet another year at Roland Garros yesterday. He came to Paris with far fewer matches under his belt than any of the other seeds, and ultimately lost 7-5, 1-6, 6-4, 6-3 in the second round to Russian Andrei Medvedev.

"I think he is the greatest player on earth that's ever picked up a tennis racquet," Medvedev said after the two hour, 22 minute win. "But, I don't think he played his best tennis today. It's not his favourite surface. It's my favourite surface."

The World number two bowed out and left the road wide open for Patrick Rafter to chase the number one crown . Roy Emerson, record holder of 12 Grand Slam titles, can now rest assured till Sampras, stuck on 11 titles, mounts his challenge in his backyard at Wimbledon.

The second seed looked desperately disappointed and confessed that he had lost his concentration midway into the crucial third set, and had just let his game slip for long enough for Medvedev to creep back into the match. He went on to admit that, maybe, he had put just a little too much of pressure on himself prior to the game, and maybe, just maybe, those legs had found it difficult to cope with the exhuasation of his four-hour first round match against Marin.

Felix Mantilla, the No. 14 seed, does not press because he is unknown. "With Moya and Corretja, no one knows me until I come to the semis or the final," he said after downing Mariano Puerta 7-5,6-4,6-4.

Patrick Rafter, the No. 3 seed, is going to be even better known after he raced to a 7-5, 6-0 against Nicolas Escude before darkness suspended play. In an hour, 11 minutes, on Court Central, Rafter won 68 points and made 22 unforced errors. Escude, ranked No. 125, won 46 points and made 28 unforced errors. The fact Rafter hit only three winners, while Escude collected but four, supports the claim that conditions were very heavy.

Darkness also postponed the Alex Corretja - Fernando Vicente three hour marathon. The No. 6 seed won the first two sets 6-3 and 6-4. Vicente grabbed a 6-3 third set and escaped with the fourth 7-6.

Though Gustavo Kuerten, the No. 8 seed and 1997 Roland Garros champion, defeated Guillermo Canas 6-2, 6-3, 3-6, 6-2, he felt a little like Sampras.

"I didn't play my best," he said. "He's a good player and every time I went down a little bit, he took advantage. I was not comfortable and not feeling the ball well in the third set. It's good when you can come back from playing bad and go to your best level again. It's tough to play all match, five sets, at one level."

Thomas Enqvist, the No. 16 seed, took a page from the "I didn't play well" book, dropping a 7-6, 6-4,6-3 decision to Stockholm practice-mate Christian Ruud.

Another woman who sparked of renewed interest was Jennifer Capriati, continuing with her blistering form. Essaying text book clean forehands, and conceding barely any errors on her forehand, Capriati outslugged her lightening quick opponent Lilia Osterloh 6-3, 3-6, 6-2 in one-hour, 33-minutes in a second round match on an extremely hot and sticky day at Roland Garros.

Her ranking rises to 53 with this victory, the highest she has had in a while now, and she seems to be improving with every single game, giving an ominous display of power that should make two of the power players in her draw, Serena Willimas and Martina Hingis, sit up and take notice.