Rios stands tall as seeds fall
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Your support makes all the difference.Not everywhere feels like home-from-home to Marcelo Rios, the brilliant Chilean left-hander who in the past has upset as many people as he has impressed. But the Nasdaq-100 Open has been his haven ever since he became the first Latin American world No 1 after winning the title here in 1998.
Yesterday, Rios' skills frustrated Juan Carlos Ferrero, the Spanish world No 3, as the culling of seeded players in the men's singles continued. Rios advanced to the fourth round with a 6-3, 7-6 win.
On Saturday, Marat Safin, the Russian seventh seed, was unable to serve with authority in his opening match against Davide Sanguinetti, and the Italian played above his No 86 ranking to win, 7-6, 7-5. Safin, who lost the first set tie-break, 11-9, made more errors than winners, including a series of sloppy forehands. Jiri Novak, the Czech eighth seed, was defeated by Nicolas Lapentti, 2-6, 6-3, 6-4.
The forthcoming Davis Cup quarter-final between Sweden and Australia seems to have galvanised one or two minds: Sweden's Thomas Enqvist eliminated Gustavo Kuerten, the Brazilian 15th seed, 6-3, 6-4, and Australia's Mark Philippoussis beat the 20th seeded Chilean, Fernando Gonzalez, 7-6, 6-4.
Yesterday, James Blake, the No 21 seed, was outplayed by his American compatriot Robbie Ginepri, a wild card, 6-3, 6-2.
Philippoussis is due to partner his compatriot Lleyton Hewitt in the doubles here, Hewitt having recovered from the bout of food poisoning that contributed to his singles defeat by Francisco Clavet, of Spain. Tim Henman, beaten by Nicolas Escude, of France, in his opening singles match, is hoping to gain match practice by playing doubles with India's Mahesh Bhupathi.
Throughout his career, Michael Chang has been under-sized and understated, but he allowed himself to bow to sentiment here on the latest stop of his farewell season. Defeated by Andre Agassi on Saturday, 6-4, 6-2 Agassi's 15th win in their 22 matches and the second within a month Chang stood back as the Las Vegan performed his customary victory communion with the spectators. Agassi then stayed in his chair as Chang paused before leaving the court, put down his bags, and raised his arms to salute a capacity crowd.
"It's never been my style to do like Andre does, for example, and go to the middle of the court and take a bow and stuff," Chang, 31, said. "But I was giving them a round of applause, for once, because they have given me so much applause for so many years."
Except for a moment towards the end of the second set when Chang threatened to break Agassi's serve, the match lacked the verve of many of their great contests, and the closing scenes will be remembered longer than the action.
In the women's singles, Kim Clijsters, the Belgian third seed, advanced to the fourth round with a 6-2, 6-2 win over Paola Suarez, of Argentina.
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