The Hindu : Sport / Tennis : Coria, Gaudio make it an Argentine final

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jun 05, 2004

Sport

Sport - Tennis

Coria, Gaudio make it an Argentine final

PARIS, JUNE 4. Guillermo Coria won 13 games in a row, then withstood Tim Henman's comeback bid to win 3-6, 6-4, 6-0, 7-5 on Friday at the French Open, setting up the first all-Argentine men's Grand Slam final.

The No. 3-seeded Coria's opponent on Sunday will be unseeded Gaston Gaudio, who lost track of the score in the second set but knew when to celebrate after beating yet another Argentine, No. 8 David Nalbandian, 6-3, 7-6 (5), 6-0.

The last Argentine to reach the men's finals at the French Open was 1982 runner-up Guillermo Vilas, who watched from the third row as Coria and Gaudio advanced to their first Grand Slam final.

``I never thought I was going to be in the final of such a big tournament like this,'' Gaudio said.

He or Coria will become the first Argentine to win a major men's title since Vilas at the 1979 Australian Open.

Coria, who is named after Vilas, won 13 games in a row for a 3-0 lead in the final set, but Henman rallied to win five consecutive games. Coria then regrouped to sweep the final four games, closing out the victory when Henman floated a backhand long.

``I started off the match well, but a difficult period in the middle, and still had chances in the end,'' Henman said. ``That's the way it goes. That's sport.''

The No. 9-seeded Henman, the first Englishman in 41 years to reach the semifinals at Roland Garros, made his run with a serve-and-volley game that's usually suicide on clay. The tactics finally backfired on him in a seesaw semifinal.

The speedy, combative Coria was on the defensive early, and he received a code violation for angrily breaking his racket after falling behind 5-3. The opening set was the first he has lost in the tournament.

Henman continued to apply pressure until he led 4-2 in the second set, when the match suddenly turned.

Coria began to hit his passing shots more precisely, Henman became more erratic, and soon the Englishman was having a hard time winning a point, much less a game.

Coria kept making his opponent hit one more shot. On one exchange, he raced into the corner, then up to the net, then retreated to hit an acrobatic overhead for a winner.

``Vamos!'' he shouted.

Henman made one last charge, overtook Coria in the fourth set and served with a chance to force a fifth. But Coria broke, then broke again for the ninth time to secure the victory.

Gaudio rallied from a 5-1 deficit in the second set, winning five consecutive games and overcoming two set points.

Confusion about the score came with Gaudio serving at 5-2 in the tiebreaker. He erroneously served from the deuce side of the court, and neither Nalbandian nor chair umpire Andreas Egli noticed the mistake until after the point, which Gaudio won for a 6-2 lead.

The point counted, and Egli told Gaudio to serve again from the deuce side. Nalbandian, frustrated that the set was slipping away, briefly argued.

``So now he's going to serve two points to the same side?'' Nalbandian said. ``Maybe you have to change to another umpire.''

Gaudio was amused by his mistake. ``I made history,'' he said. ``It's the first time something like that happened in the French Open.''

With the situation resolved, Nalbandian overcame three consecutive set points to reach 6-5, but Gaudio then closed out the set with an overhead slam.

From there, the No. 8-seeded Nalbandian unravelled, struggling to keep the ball in the court. He won only seven points in the final set, and on the last point he dumped a forehand into the net, his 46th unforced error.

Nalbandian said he hurt his ribs in the quarterfinals and was hampered by the injury, especially when serving. ``Sometimes you're not feeling so good and you can't win any matches,'' he said.

Regarding the confusion about the score in the tiebreaker, Nalbandian faulted Egli.

``He did a very big mistake, like both of us,'' Nalbandian said. ``The umpire has to be concentrating on the game. I think that kind of mistake is so big, they have to have a fine or something.''

The stadium was half empty for the start of the first men's semifinal on another chilly, damp day at Roland Garros. Gaudio broke three times to win the first set; Nalbandian broke three times to build his lead in the second.

But the smaller, speedier Gaudio kept extending rallies by retrieving shots in the corners, and Nalbandian's strokes became increasingly erratic as his frustration mounted.

Trailing 3-0 in the third set, Nalbandian even tried hitting a stroke between his legs. The attempt came as he retreated after the lob, and his desperate shot — with his back to the net — landed wide.

Gaudio, 25, never wavered as he closed in on the biggest victory of his career. Reflecting his steadiness, he finished with 27 winners and just 19 errors.

After closing out the match, Gaudio received a congratulatory slap on the back from Nalbandian, and then raised his arms in triumph. He looked to the sky and covered his eyes, sat down and began to sob.

Without a Frenchwoman to cheer for, and without Serena Williams to cheer against, fans will be satisfied on Saturday if there's a less lopsided, more compelling match than they saw on Thursday.

Tushar-Divij in last four

Mahesh Bhupathi's dreams of adding one more Grand Slam title to his kitty was shattered when he and Max Mirnyi of Belarus crashed out of the men's doubles on Thursday.

The third seeded Indo-Belarussian pair lost the semifinals against unseeded Belgian pair of Xavier Malisse and Oliver Rochus 6-7 (1), 6-4, 2-6.

Bhupathi has won the French Open doubles' title twice, in 1999 and 2001, with Leander Paes.

There was good news in the boys' doubles event as Tushar Liberhan and Divij Sharan stormed into the semifinals defeating Phillip Simmonds of the U.S. and South African Fritz Wolmarans 6-4, 6-2.

The Indians will next take on the seventh seeds, Alex Kuznetsov of the U.S. and Mihail Zverev of Germany, who made it to the semifinals when the third-seeded French pair of Gael Monfils and Josselin Ouanna retired after losing the first set 6-2. — Agencies

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