Three Argentines in French Open Men's Semis

Posted on June 3, 2004

The Argentine Army completed its roll into the Roland Garros semifinals Wednesday, with No. 8 seed David Nalbandian outclassing No. 28 seed and three-time French Open champ Gustavo Kuerten 6-2, 3-6, 6-4, 7-6(6), and unseeded Gaston Gaudio showing the holes in No. 12 seed Lleyton Hewitt's claycourt game with a 6-3, 6-2, 6-2 summary dismissal.

Nalbandian and Gaudio joined countryman Guillermo Coria, along with unlikely semifinalist Tim Henman to round out the final four.

"It was the first time I was in a quarterfinal of a Grand Slam tournament," Gaudio said. "But I'm especially happy because I played much better than the other day, where I was very nervous. Today, well, I'm very pleased, and I hope I'm going to continue to enjoy this."

Hewitt said he had an off day against the backboard Gaudio, firing off his series of "you know"s.

"You know, I just didn't feel like I was hitting the ball as cleanly as I've probably been hitting it over the last week or so," Hewitt said. "You know, against a guy like that, you know, he's very confident at the moment, especially on this surface, I think. And, you know, his movement's as good as anyone's on this surface." We know.

The combined Argentine personalities of Coria, Gaudio and Nalbandian make the dry Henman look like Austin Powers in the Brit's post-match conferences.

The top two seeds moved into the women's doubles semifinals Wednesday, with (1)Virginia Ruano Pascual/Paola Suarez coming from a set down to beat (7)Janette Husarova/Conchita Martinez 3-6, 7-6 (7-2), 6-2, and Russians (2)Svetlana Kuznetsova/Elena Likhovtseva defeating the unseeded team of Jill Craybas/Marlene Weingartner 6-2, 5-7, 7-5. Rounding out the semis were (5)Martina Navratilova/Lisa Raymond (d. (4)Petrova/Shaughnessy), and Italians (15)Silvia Farina Elia/Francesca Schiavone (d. Testud/Vinci).

On the Thursday schedule are the women's semis in (9)Dementieva vs. (14)Suarez (Russian leads career meetings 2-1, but Suarez won their lone encounter on clay) and (6)Myskina vs. (7)Capriati (Jen-Jen leads 5-1, including two on clay, but the Russian got her first win earlier this year in Doha), and the men's doubles semifinals in Americans (1)Bryan/Bryan vs. Frenchmen (6)Llodra/Santoro, and (3)Bhupathi/The Beast vs. unseeded waffles Malisse/O.Rochus.

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NEWS, NOTES, QUOTES AND BARBS
Gustavo Kuerten suffered his first loss to a South American at a Grand Slam (9-1 now) after losing to David Nalbandian...Lleyton Hewitt has now failed to reach the SF at his last six slams...Gaston Gaudio has reached his first career slam SF...Jennifer Capriati is the only one of the women's Final Four that has reached a slam final (Elena Dementieva was a semifinalist at 2000 US Open)...This is the first time since 2000 Roland Garros that no Williams sister or Belgian waffle reached a slam semifinal...Paola Suarez has reached the finals of her last eight Grand Slam doubles events, winning four of them...The last female Russian to reach a slam final was Olga Morosova at Wimbledon in 1974. Morosova is the travelling coach for Elena Dementieva...The last time no Top 5 seeds were in the semifinals at a women's slam was the Aussie Open in 1978...Paola Suarez has yet to drop a set...In Lleyton Hewitt's post-loss press conference, he averaged more than one "you know" for every sentence he spoke, and it was a long conference. What's the problem, he speaks English, it's not like he's adopting the language? Time to go back through the ATP media training...The last Argentine to win at Roland Garros was Guillermo Vilas in 1977, scratch that record...Lindsay Davenport says she will take some time off with her knee bothering her -- bank on that knee bothering her enough to pull from the Olympics...If ESPN's coverage seems more palatable over the last two weeks, perhaps it's because Pam Shriver is on maternity leave. Sorry to hit you while you're on the couch Pam...Where are ESPN's Greg Garber's expositions about his drunken exploits out and about Paris this year? Now it's all crappy Bryan brothers features and "Wow, it's really hard to win on clay" pieces. The suits must have come down hard on him, that was good stuff last year, this year he is booooring. Get that man a Stella...Argentina has never before advanced more than two men as far as the quarterfinals in a Grand Slam event. "This is like a history event -- an unbelievable week," Gaston Gaudio said. "Maybe an Argentinean guy is going to take the final, and it's going to be like a dream." Not for U.S. TV ratings...Serena Williams' loss to Jennifer Capriati in the French Open quarterfinals means she will drop to No. 11 when the new WTA rankings come out next week. It is her first slide out of the Top 10 since August 1999...Tim Henman is the first Brit to reach the French Open semifinals since the Open Era began in 1968. Several British dailies put him on their front pages Wednesday, it's Tim-mania!...How beautiful is that Gaston Gaudio one-handed backhand? Beautiful enough to win a French Open?...Marat Safin told Russia's TASS Wednesday: "I've got a painful feeling that our sport is gradually vastly dying out because of wrong organization...we rush in fever from tournament to tournament almost all year round. All of us after 20 are in fact 'walking medical records' of numerous diseases." Who translated that?...John McEnroe: "If Henman pulls this off (beats Coria) I will stand on my head for the entire first set of the first match I cover at Wimbledon."...Former Henman coach David Felgate showed why he should be out of coaching, saying Henman has a legitimate shot of not only beating Coria, but winning the French. In a poll of Tennis-X staff, it was determined that Henman would choke it if he had to play Coria in the Wimbledon semis...Michaella "Little Sis" Krajicek advanced to the quarterfinals in the girls' tournament at Roland Garros with a 4-6, 7-5, 6-1 win over Violette Huck.