Martin Eliminates Any Chance of Repeat by Korda

There were times in the last week, it seemed, that Todd Martin was Petr Korda’s only friend around here. Martin, from his influential post as president of the ATP players’ council, tried to quiet the storm surrounding Korda’s controversial drug case.

Martin might not agree with the decision of an appeals committee to let Korda continue playing after he tested positive at Wimbledon last year for a banned substance, nandrolone, an anabolic steroid. Nevertheless, he tried to put a stop to the “witch-hunt” mentality, trying for some spin control.

So, who was the one to put the defending champion out of the Australian Open, mixing a powerful serve with an off-speed forehand or two?

Naturally, Martin.

Certainly, there was no shortage of quirky circumstances surrounding the third-round match. It started on Korda’s 31st birthday and ended in the early morning hours today. Martin, on a 13-match winning streak, defeated the Czech, 7-5, 4-6, 7-6 (7-2), 5-7, 6-4, in 3 hours 25 minutes, serving 29 aces.

“It means a lot to beat a good player,” Martin said. “And when you feel like that good player is not exactly playing poorly, it means more. When you do that in a Grand Slam, it means even more.”

The 15th-seeded Martin was wildly out of character at times, openly demonstrative and fiery. In the crucial third-set tiebreaker, Martin won a big point by hitting a slice forehand, baffling Korda with the sudden change of pace. Korda promptly dumped a forehand in the net, and Martin raised his arms in a look-what-I-did gesture of amazement and amusement.

Korda, who won his first Grand Slam title here at 30 last year, graciously dealt with the end of his reign. Martin, at the net, shook his hand and told him that he handled the chaos admirably.

“Always when you lose the match you are disappointed,” Korda said. “But you know, I’m happy. The year is starting right now, and hopefully I’m going to maintain this level of playing. I have to take only the positive out of this.”

Not surprisingly, Korda was heckled in his first and last center-court appearance here this year.

‘Everybody has their own opinion,” Korda said. “Some of them are insulting. They’re hitting under the belt. But what can I do?”

Said Martin: “I don’t think the fans were unruly. I think a couple of them may have been out in the sun a little too much today and had a couple of pints too many.”

It seemed as though controversy was Korda’s constant companion here. Australian television showed shots of Korda’s coach in the stands making more gestures than a third-base coach, urging him to move Martin around more on the court. Of course, if Korda could not figure that out himself, he was in serious trouble, anyway.

Curiously, there was no warning for coaching given.

“You can’t even see him over there. But I could hear only, ‘Come on,’ ” Korda said.

Said Martin, joking: “I guess my coach signaled better. No, I’m a big opponent of coaching, on-court coaching, and would like to see the rule enforced as well as it can be, to stop coaching from the stands. But regardless of what he was doing, my game plan had to stay the same and I really don’t think it [the coaching] could help him too much.”

Martin is among four seeded players remaining in the men’s draw. The others are fifth-seeded Andre Agassi, seventh-seeded Karol Kucera of Slovakia and 10th-seeded Yevgeny Kafelnikov of Russia.

In fourth-round matches today, Kucera defeated Wayne Ferreira of South Africa, 6-3, 6-1, 7-5; Nicolas Lapentti of Ecuador beat Andrew Ilie of Australia, 6-4, 6-2, 4-6, 6-2; and Marc Rosset of Switzerland dispatched Bohdan Ulihrach of the Czech Republic, 6-3, 6-4, 6-2. The final Australian, 14th-seeded Mark Philippoussis, lost to Thomas Enqvist, 6-2, 6-4, 6-7 (7-3), 4-6, 6-2.

In women’s fourth-round matches, fifth-seeded Venus Williams defeated Chanda Rubin, 7-6 (7-30, 6-4, 11th-seeded Dominique Van Roost of Belgium beat Maria Antonia Sanchez Lorenzo of Spain, 6-2, 6-3, and Amelie Mauresmo of France had little trouble against countrywoman Emilie Loit, 6-0, 7-5.

In a later match, top-seeded Lindsay Davenport played Canadian qualifier Maureen Drake, and is on track for a quarterfinal match against Williams.

“I’ll approach the match like any other match,” said Williams, who is 1-6 against Davenport. “I know I’m playing against the No. 1-seeded player, but I have some rights of my own, a little something behind my name. So I have something to work with.”

Davenport may be the top-ranked player in the world, and said she gets recognized more often because of that status.

But a little recognition might have been nice recently in Sydney. After the Sydney final, Davenport and Alex Corretja of Spain were traveling to Melbourne and a gate agent would not let them carry their rackets on the plane.

“They had just let Martina [Hingis] and Mary Joe [Fernandez] go on with their rackets and we were arguing, ‘You just let those people on,’ ” Davenport said. “And she said, ‘Well, Martina Hingis needs her racket.’ ”

Davenport was able to laugh about it later.

“She didn’t know who Corretja and I were and we got into the biggest fight with the lady. We almost got like a fine or something. But we snuck them on, but it wasn’t easy.’

“We were laughing. I would have like to have seen [Hingis’ mother] Melanie [Molitor] if they tried to take Martina’s racket. She would have freaked.”