NEW YORK—Andre Agassi, James Blake and Robby Ginepri made it a memorable Labor Day holiday for America with all three winning through to the quarter-finals. Agassi resisted a brave fight back from Belgium’s Xavier Malisse to win 6-3, 6-4, 6-7 (5/7), 4-6, 6-2. Blake came from behind to edge past Spain’s Tommy Robredo 4-6, 7-5, 6-2, 6-3 and he will next go up against Agassi for a place in the semi-finals. Ginepri made it a hat-trick of home wins by taking the last two sets against French teenager
He will take on Argentina’s Guillermo Coria who scored a 6-4, 2-6, 6-7 (5/7), 6-2, 6-2 win over Olympic champion Nicolas Massu of Chile in a bad-tempered encounter. Both 35-year-old Agassi, a two-times former winner, and 25-year-old Blake, who has battled back from personal adversity, were rewarded with standing ovations from the capacity 20,000 crowd in the Arthur Ashe Stadium.
Agassi let slip a two set lead but hit back to win a five-set roller-coaster against Malisse. The oldest man left in the championships, Agassi kept alive his hopes of a third title, six years after his last. Agassi had looked untouchable in the first two sets, but Malisse rallied behind a tremendous serving performance to force a fifth. But it was Agassi who made the vital breakthrough, pounding a backhand drive down the baseline to take a crucial 3-1 lead.
That finally derailed the Malisse revival and the Las Vegan, playing in his 20th consecutive Open, raced away with the last three games. “I was a bit discouraged in the fourth set. As hard as I wanted to try, there was not a lot I could do. He was hitting ace after ace. Physically it felt great. I just needed a chance, and I didn’t get that until the fifth set,” he said.
“I wasn’t happy about being in the fifth after being two sets to love up, but when I got on top the wheels came off quickly”. Local boy Blake, competing on a wildcard, was a point away from being two sets to love down before rebounding to defeat 19th seed Robredo in four sets. The story of how he overcame a catalogue of personal disasters in 2004 and returned to play the best tennis of his life has inspired many people here. Blake, who hails from neighbouring Connecticut, fractured a bone in his neck while crashing into a netpost during practice, damaged his eyesight due to shingles and watched his father die of cancer.
But hard work during the early part of this year saw him back to his best in time for the US hardcourt season and he produced one of the big upsets during the first week at Flushing Meadows by defeating second seed Rafael Nadal. “He was playing great, and I just had to scrap my way back into it,” said Blake of Robredo. “I have no idea how I did it”. “But when you are down here it doesn’t seem like you are down because I have so many fans cheering for me”. “A year ago I would never have believed that I would be playing in the quarter-finals of the US Open against a legend like Agassi,” he said.
The unseeded Ginepri soaked up all that the talented shot-maker Gasquet could fire at him and then pounced when the 19-year-old finally wilted late in the fourth set with arm and stomach problems. His reward is a first-ever appearance in a Grand Slam quarter-final. His next opponent, eighth seed Coria’s tie against Massu was bizarrely marred by a dispute over a loose toenail in the fifth set. At 4hrs 32mins, it was the longest match of the championships so far, though the quality of the tennis was not of the highest order. Claycourter Coria was the stronger of the two in the exchanges, but he served up a sorrowful 20 double faults to allow Massu, last year’s Olympic champion in Athens, to stay in the tie. There were some glares over the net between the two in the earlier sets, but in the decider it nearly boiled over with Coria leading 2-1 when the two South Americans swapped angry words at the changeover.
Last year’s French Open finalist did not let that affect him as he returned to break Massu’s serve and take a 4-1 lead. Three games later he ended the marathon and after he had clambered over to the Chilean’s side of the net there was a curt handshake between the two as Coria ran off to celebrate with his entourage. Asked about what had upset the players in the final set, Coria, who has a history of disputes with other players, said that it had all been a misunderstanding. “I lost a toenail on my foot and he thought it was not a real injury,” he said. “After that nothing further happened. Four and a half hours and that was it.” A surly Massu sounded less convinced.—Agencies