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Kuerten finally goes through to meet Coria
January 10, 2003 15:57 IST
Gustavo Kuerten had to move indoors to finally win his stop-start second round clash with American Michael Russell 4-6, 6-4, 6-2 in the rain-interrupted Auckland Open late on Friday.
The fourth-seeded Brazilian meets Argentina's Guillermo Coria, the number seven seed, in an all-South American quarter-final on Saturday.
The match, held up on Thursday with the players locked at one set all, resumed on Friday morning and Kuerten won the first nine points to take a 3-0 lead in the final set when the rain came down again.
That was all the play possible on the Stanley Street courts as the rain that pounded Auckland all day made them unplayable.
The third attempt to complete the match was indoors where Kuerten finally finished off his opponent.
One other match was completed indoors on Friday. Austrian Stefan Koubek, up one set and losing 1-0 in the second to Raemon Sluiter overnight, ended up beating the Dutchman 6-3, 3-6, 6-1. Koubek meets Argentine Mariano Zabaleta in the last eight.
In the other quarter-finals, top-seeded Czech Jiri Novak faces Felix Mantilla of Spain and Dominik Hrbaty of Slovakia faces Spaniard David Ferrer.
The quarter-finals and semi-finals will now both be played on Saturday and the final on Sunday. But as the weather forecast is again for rain those plans look likely to go awry.
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