Rafter, Ferrero qualify for Masters Cup

Australian Pat Rafter and Spaniard Juan Carlos Ferrero are the latest players to qualify for the season-ending Masters Cup in Sydney next month.

The pair join U.S. Open champion Lleyton Hewitt, ATP Champions race leader Gustavo Kuerten and Andre Agassi as qualifiers for the elite $3.7 million tournament where the eight best players of the year will compete from November 12-18.

The tournament will decide the number one ranking with world number two Hewitt and Australian Open champion Agassi the most likely candidates to topple Kuerten.

The Masters Cup and the Davis Cup, in which Australia face France in Melbourne at the end of November, will be the last two tournaments Rafter plays before he takes a break from the game at the end of the year.

"I'll do anything to play well there," said Rafter, who has been plagued with a persistent shoulder injury this year.

Rafter has had to withdraw from several tournaments in the run up to the Masters Cup, including the Stuttgart and Paris Masters this month, because of the injury.

"I'll be doing a lot of training, a couple of easy weeks here and there to ease back into it, and get down to Sydney a week early and train really hard the week before," said the twice U.S. Open champion.

"It was very successful last year and to me again it's coming down to another beauty.

"That's the whole idea behind the Masters, and it was a very successful move by the ATP to do it in this way with the Race and chasing for the No.1 position at the end of the year.

"Everyone is keen and everyone is ready to go."

This will be Rafter's fourth appearance at the championship -- after the ATP Tour World Championships in 1997 and 1998 and the 1997 Grand Slam Cup.

He was runner-up to Goran Ivanisevic at Wimbledon, a finalist at the Montreal and Cincinnati Masters Series in August and won his 11th career title in Indianapolis.

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Clay-court specialist Ferrero, who will make his first appearance at the tournament, has been in the top 10 since April when he won in Dubai.

Titles in Estoril, Barcelona and the Rome Masters Series soon followed. He was also a finalist at the Hamburg Masters and a semifinalist at Roland Garros.

Playing in St Petersburg this week, Ferrero said qualifying for the Cup had been his main goal for 2001.

"All year, I wanted to play the Masters because last year I finished just out of the Top 10," said Ferrero.

"I am so happy I have qualified after my results this year. I knew it was possible for me to be there."

Several players including Yevgeny Kafelnikov, Stuttgart winner Tommy Haas and Goran Ivanisevic are hotly contesting the last three places in the tournament.

The tournament is jointly owned and run by the ITF, ATP and the Grand Slams and replaced the ATP World Championship and Grand Slam Cup in 2000.

Kuerten won the inaugural Tennis Masters Cup in Lisbon last year.

To qualify, a player must be in the top eight of the ATP Champions Race or be an eligible Grand Slam champion.

If a Grand Slam champion is outside the top eight but within the top 20, he is eligible for the one wild card on offer.

In that instance it would be the seven leading players from the Race plus the wild card making up the field.