Thursday, August 09, 2001
Tennis Masters Notebook
Arazi upsets Ferrero
By Michael Perry and Neil Schmidt
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Morocco's Hicham Arazi pulled the biggest upset of the day when he beat fourth-seeded Juan Carlos Ferrero 6-7 (1), 6-4, 6-4.
Arazi, ranked 30th in the world, advanced to the finals of Tennis Masters Series Monte Carlo before losing to Gustavo Kuerten.
Serving for the match at 5-4, Arazi blew a match point when he misfired when trying for a winner. Then he saved two break points. But after the second break point, he got a cramp in his right leg.
After an injury time out, Arazi returned and won two points — on a service winner and an errant Ferrero shot — to close out the match. He'll play Ivan Ljubicic at 7 p.m. on Grandstand Court.
“My leg is OK,” Arazi said. “But I'm glad my match (today) isn't until night, so I can rest more.”
TWO QUALIFIERS: Two of the eight qualifiers have advanced to the third round.
Ljubicic, a Croatian ranked 67th in the world, upset No.13 seed Carlos Moya 7-6 (5), 7-5 Wednesday. This success shouldn't seem surprising, for Ljubicic came through the qualifier last week in Montreal and beat Andre Agassi 6-2, 6-4 in the first round.
Stefan Koubek was the other winning qualifier Wednesday, beating Sjeng Schalken 6-1, 7-6 (5). Koubek, of Austria, is ranked 85th in the world; Schalken is 32nd.
This is the sixth time two qualifiers have reached the round of 16 here.
WILD CARDS: Two of the four wild cards are also alive: Goran Ivanisevic and James Blake.
Ivanisevic isn't a surprise; he's the 14th seed. He needed a wild card only because entries were taken during Wimbledon, just before his ranking jumped 109 spots by winning that tournament. But Blake's invitation was a courtesy by tournament director Bruce Flory.
Blake, a 21-year-old American ranked 120th in the world, was actually given a wild card into the qualifier because Richard Krajicek pulled out with injury.
“(For wild cards) in the qualifier, our philosophy is really to help the young Americans if we can get them going,” tournament director Bruce Flory said last week. “Also, these are guys that we'd like to see on the main stage in a few years.”
RECORDS: Fans are setting some records at the ATP Tennis Center. It was the first time ever a Monday night session drew more than 10,000 fans (10,241 to be exact), and Tuesday's day session drew 11,723 fans, the largest single-session in the tournament's history.
CLASSIC MOMENT: In a three-set doubles loss late Tuesday night, Murphy Jensen showed his displeasure with a call by untying the chair umpire's shoe laces on his way to his seat.
On game point in the first game of the third set, a serve hit Jensen, who was standing in the deuce court service box. Jensen thought it hit the ground. The umpire thought it hit Murphy and gave Leander Paes-Mahesh Bhupathi the point.
TODAY'S SCHEDULE
11 a.m.
Stadium: Kiefer vs. Henman; Rafter vs. Blake (not before 1 p.m.); Canas vs. Gambill.
Grandstand: Koubek vs. Rusedski; Hewitt vs. Mirnyi (not before 1 p.m.); A. Martin vs. Kafelnikov; Bjorkman-Woodbridge vs. Haas-Mirnyi.
Court 3: Gimelstob-O'Brien vs. Bhupathi-Paes; Novak-Rikl vs. Black-Hill; R.Ferreira-Leach or Ginepri-Morrison vs. Garcia-Suk; Blake-T.Martin vs. M.Bryan-B. Bryan; Florent-Hewitt vs. W.Ferreira-Kafelnikov
Court 4: Damm-Prinosil vs. Arthurs-Kratzmann.
7 p.m.
Stadium: Kuerten vs. Ivanisevic; Lapenti-Tarango vs. Johnson-Palmer.
Grandstand: Ljubicic vs. Arazi
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Tennis Masters Notebook
