Safin on fast track to glory
The Great Australian Blight, also known here as the men's singles tournament, snared another victim at the quarter-final stage of the Australian Open when South Africa's Wayne Ferreira, having won successive five-set matches, discovered his ailing body to be in rebellious mood against Russia's Marat Safin and pulled out of their match after 28 minutes when 5-2 down.
Safin was delighted, doubly so when his semi-final opponent, Germany's Tommy Haas, took more than three hours to defeat Marcelo Rios of Chile in yesterday's second quarter-final, played under floodlights in the Rod Laver stadium. "I don't think it will be a factor," said Haas. "I have a day off before playing Marat."
Safin, unsurprisingly, did not agree. "For me it's great. I've been able to save my energy." And he needed to after his epic fourth-round victory over Pete Sampras. Haas, on the other hand, has had two extremely tough matches back-to-back, having defeated Switzerland's Roger Federer in five sets in the previous round when he saved a match point.
Ferreira had felt a twinge in his stomach muscles while warming up for his match against Safin, and feared the worst. It was an injury he had experienced before in his career and one he knew had serious implications. But this was his 45th consecutive grand-slam appearance and only his fourth quarter-final, so he was not about to make any decision lightly.
Safin, seeded No9 and the only player left in the draw to have won a grand slam title - he defeated Sampras in the 2000 US Open - was aware that Ferreira was struggling, particularly on his second serve, yet forced himself not to let his mind wander. "You never know what is going to happen," he said.
The 30-year-old South African was desperate to carry on, but also knew that if he continued it might ruin the rest of his year. And so he quit, much to his obvious disappointment and that of the 15,000-strong crowd.
After beating Sampras at Flushing Meadows, and finishing 2000 as the No2 player in the world, Safin suffered a sharp reversal last year, brought on by a back injury which troubled him, off and on, for nearly six months. His confidence ebbed and he slid out of the top 10.
"I was afraid, of course," said the player. "I could not find my game after the injury, nothing was working and I didn't know what to do. But then - slowly, slowly - my confidence came back. I reached the quarter-finals at Wimbledon and the semi-finals at the US Open." The Russian gloom that had descended on the 21-year-old Muscovite gradually lifted, and he concentrated on getting himself fully fit and fully prepared for this year.
"Against Tommy we will both be nervous and both of us will be trying to find our game and our confidence as fast as we can. That's going to be the key to the match," said Safin. The assumption is that whoever wins between Safin and Haas will become champion, although being the favourite has been a poisoned chalice since the tournament began.
Haas, the No7 seed, had a wonderful finish to last year, winning tournaments in Vienna and Stuttgart. Before the start of 2001, the 23-year-old German, who forged his early career under the long shadow of Boris Becker, had appeared in nine finals and lost eight. He won four titles last year, climbing to No8 in the world rankings. Recurring back problems had previously stymied his progress but for the last eight months he has been pain free. His serve is now a fearsome weapon, as Rios discovered, while his forehand has improved immensely to complement his wonderfully flowing top-spin backhand.
Rios, himself emerging from debilitating injury problems, remains one of the most gifted players on the circuit, a true magician, even if his suspect temperament has led many to see him as a master of the dark arts. Against Haas he produced moments of sublime left-hand artistry that made the crowd gasp in disbelief.
He managed to reach the final here in 1998, only to lose anonymously in straight sets against Petr Korda of the Czech Republic. Later that year, when under the tutelage of Tim Henman's new coach Larry Stefanki, he briefly became the world No1, but he entered this tournament as a lowly No48.
Rios remains less than loved, having courted controversy in Melbourne with his comments concerning the lack of competitive depth in women's tennis - a patently obvious fact to all but the blind - but his style of play, with the emphasis on pure skill, is a wonderful contrast to the biff-and-bash brigade and makes his return most welcome.
Time and again he had Haas - also a semi-finalist in 1999 when he lost to Russia's Yevgeny Kafelnikov, the eventual champion - on the ropes in the opening two sets, but these days the young German is made of stern stuff, and Rios could not quite find the knockout punch.
The Haas-Safin semi-final will be quite a different affair, and it may be that the Russian Safin, providing he concentrates as hard as he did against Sampras, will have the edge. But nothing, absolutely nothing, can be taken for granted.