Hewitt Upset by Robredo; Women Notch Blowouts

ATP REVIEW/PREVIEW
As predicted, No. 1 Lleyton Hewitt was tripped up prior to the quarters at Roland Garros Saturday, falling in five sets after squandering a two sets to love lead against No. 28 seed Tommy Robredo of Spain. "Well, a little bit of good luck, a little bit to be consistent," said Robredo, who has never lost a five-set match, of his amazing comeback. "I was trying, no? Because sometimes when you are two sets down and you make two sets all, then the other guy gets 3-0, you make like this (exasperated face), and you leave the match. I try, I push. A lot, all of these things make me come back in the match." Good tennis, bad English Tommy. Hewitt did not see a lot of problems on his part and attributed the loss to a bad draw, saying there were no changes in the works for his power-outage-of-a claycourt game. "I'm not going to put on the claycourt shoes for nearly another year," said Hewitt, who had never before squandered a 2-0 set lead in his career. "I don't have to worry about it right now." After two early slam exits this year, you'd better start worrying soon, mate. Saturday at Roland Garros saw a number of exhilarating matches on the men's side, the highlight being defending champion Al Costa's amazing comeback (again) from an 0-2 set deficit (again) in beating unseeded Nicolas Lapentti, who cramped badly in the fifth set but almost pulled the steal with an amazing exhibition of drop shots and heart. For Costa, that's 11 hours, 57 minutes on the court, more than the top three seeds on the women's side combined. And Al become the fourth player in Roland Garros history to score two five set comebacks in the same tournament. Other seeds advancing were (3)Ferrero (d. (25)Henman after losing the first set), (19)Gonzalez (d. Schalken when the Dutchman retired in the third), (20)Mantilla (d. Vicente in straights), (30)Nieminen (d. Hanescu in yet another five setter), (32)Clement (d. Coutelot in straights), and (15)Kuerten lead (21)Gaudio 2-0 sets when the match was suspended for the day due to rain (which never came, nice call Frenchies). The lone doubles upset on the day was Arnold/Hood upending (13)Cibulec/Vizner.
Today on the men's side features an odd menu in (2)Agassi vs. Saretta (first meeting), (11)Schuettler vs. Verkerk (first meeting), (4)Moya vs. (13)Novak (Novak leads 5-4, including a win a couple weeks ago at Dusseldorf), and (7)Coria vs. Zabaleta (Coria leads 2-0 in this all-Argentinean match-up, including a win earlier this year at Buenos Aires).

WTA REVIEW/PREVIEW
Another droning day of women's blowouts, and thanks NBC for leading with the horrible, horrible Capriati and Venus matches where there was so much good men's tennis going on, nice call. You waited all week for that? The eight winners on the women's side Saturday lost an average of around five games each, nice "depth" as the WTA is always pointing out. Winners included (2)Clijsters (d. Suarez), (3)Venus (d. Farina Elia), (6)Davenport (d. Dechy), (7)Capriati (d. Vakulenko), (15)Maleeva (d. Grande), (22)Zvonareva (d. Sanchez Lorenzo), (24)Martinez (d. Pisnik), and unseeded Nadia Petrova (d. Irvin). Tennis-X staff voted to submit a petition to the slam committee to cut the women's draw from 128 to eight players -- contact a Tennis-X staffer on site to sign. The lone doubles upset was Majoli/Tulyaganova beating (13)Krizan/Srebotnik.
On today's blow-out agenda (check the head-to-heads) are (1)Serena vs. (16)Sugiyama (Serena leads 2-0), (2)Clijsters vs. (15)Maleeva (Clijsters leads 3-0), (5)Mauresmo vs. Magui "Chunky Style" Serna (Mauresmo leads 3-0), (3)Venus vs. (22)Vera "Warren" Zvonareva (first meeting, watch for Venus to tank this if the ab injury flares up or Zevon to win outright!), (4)Henin-Hardenne vs. (19)Schnyder (H-H leads 3-0), (8)Rubin vs. Mandula (first meeting), (6)Davenport vs. (24)Martinez (Martinez leads 7-6 in what could be the only closely-contested match), and (7)Capriati vs. Petrova (Jen leads 2-0).

FRENCH OPEN TOP 10 ALL-TIME WINNING PERCENTAGE
Even if Agassi wins the title this year, he will stay at No. 8 on the all-time list. Guga can catch Borg if he wins his next 67 matches in a row! (minimum 15 matches, through beginning of this year's event):

1. Borg, Bjorn (SWE), 49-2 .961
2. Kuerten, Gustavo (BRA), 29-4 .879
3. Ferrero, Juan Carlos (ESP), 16-3 .842
4. Wilander, Mats (SWE), 47-9 .839
5. Gimeno, Andres (ESP), 14-3 .824
6. Courier, Jim (USA), 40-9 .816
7. Lendl, Ivan (USA), 53-12 .815
8. Agassi, Andre (USA), 47-13 .783
9. Kodes, Jan (CZE), 39-11 .780
10. Safin, Marat (RUS), 17-5 .773

TOUR NEWS, NOTES, AND BARBS
Jennifer Capriati displayed her unique social skills after beating 19-year-old Julia Vakulenko at Roland Garros: "I don't know how young she is. She looks kind of old."...Ashley "Crying Game" Harkleroad's legs give out in the third set of her match against Magui "Chunky Style" Serna on Thursday? C'mon kid, you're a teenager, get in shape...Pete Sampras doesn't only pull from tournaments, the former No. 1 has pulled from his involvement in the new Home Depot sports complex in Carson, California. "Yes, it is true, I'm not doing it," Sampras said, referring to the project many assumed would become the Pete Sampras Tennis Academy. "My enthusiasm for the project hasn't diminished, but I am not able to make the necessary time commitments for a facility that would have my name on it. AEG and I have mutually decided not to formalize our agreement." Yeah, mutually, they said "Dammit! He pulled!" after you said "Nope"... Martina Navratilova liked her chances had Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf played mixed doubles together at the French: "I know we would have played them. That would have been the match of the tournament, I think. Neither one was really much of a specialist in doubles. No matter how great Andre and Steffi are, it would have been more difficult for them in the mixed, but it would have been fun."...Vince Spadea was so far back trying to return Matin Verkerk's serve on Court 2 the other day, on one return he nearly fell into a linesman's chair, and on another he barely missed swatting the center service line caller in the head with his racket...Spadea is in the running for a U.S. Davis Cup singles spot in September vs. the Slovak Republic on clay (couldn't be any worst than the Pay-Rod/Blake results)...Corina Morariu is divorcing her former coach Andrew Turcinovich...A lot of ice on the abs seems to be keeping the injury at bay for Venus...Venus wants Serena to get out of the house more: "I told her not to hang around me too much, I'll get her down. She won't get to do the things she needs to do in her life because I'll be at home watching the Golden Girls."...At 27, Chanda Rubin is the oldest player in the Top 10...Rubin holds the record for the longest women's matches at both Wimbledon (beating Patty Hy-Boulais 7-6, 6-7, 17-15 in three hours, 45 minutes in 1995) and the Australian Open (defeating Arantxa Sanchez Vicario 6-4, 2-6, 16-14 in three hours, 33 minutes in 1996)...Brad Gilbert picked Tommy Robredo to beat Lleyton Hewitt, props even though your website blows...We hear Rainer Schuettler took a boat ride down the river Seine. Nice training for Verkerk...Pam Shriver's voice is like sandpaper on our brain...When asked how far Tommy Robredo can go in the tournament, Lleyton Hewitt replied, "Probably the next round."...Could Tommy Robredo's shorts and pants be any tighter? Did he just come from the Tour de France?...Go to Sport's Illustrated's tennis website, which hasn't changed since Tuesday: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/tennis/...What the hell is up with NBC announcer John McEnroe's freakish mop of gray hair? He looks like Quicksilver from the old X-Men comics (beat that reference ESPN.com! Bam!)...Temperatures are expected into the mid 80s on site today, time to hit the Haagen-Daz or the Glaces...A hail storm was expected last night here in Roland Garros, but it never came...Stat du jour: Going into the match against Costa, Nicolas Lapentti had won 16 of his last 18 five-set matches. Amazing...The on-court PA guy on Suzanne Lenglen is rumored to speak like every language. This way, when players come off the court, he can interview anyon, which is what he has been doing. He even got Lapentti to speak!...TV TIME: Look for Agassi/Serena on NBC and on ESPN it's Davenport/Capriati.