Journeys of Enqvist, Kafelnikov Converge

The scenery was different on their way to the Australian Open men’s final:

Thomas Enqvist of Sweden cut through the heart of Australia, taking out local icons Patrick Rafter and Mark Philippoussis in consecutive rounds. Tenth-seeded Yevgeny Kafelnikov of Russia sliced up last year’s Davis Cup team from the United States, Jim Courier and Todd Martin.

But their routes had some similarities. Enqvist, 24, needed 21 sets to reach his first Grand Slam final. Kafelnikov, also 24, played 22 in making his first Grand Slam final since winning the French Open in 1996.

Enqvist, unbeaten in 1999, got stronger in the later rounds, defeating Marc Rosset in the quarterfinals and Nicolas Lapentti in the semifinals, in straight sets. Kafelnikov did the same thing against Martin and Tommy Haas.

All this meant that Kafelnikov, the gambling man, limited himself to one prediction for Sunday’s final.

“I promise you it’s going to be a long one,” Kafelnikov said. “I promise.”

Enqvist is a man of few words--though he did cause a few chuckles when he interrupted a news conference to say, “Bless you,” to a sneezing journalist. He gets more animated talking about his favorite team, the Philadelphia Flyers, than he does about his own tennis game.

His nerves are almost invisible, the lone exception being when he served for the match against Philippoussis in the third set and soon found himself in a fifth set.

Enqvist leads the series against Kafelnikov, 4-2, having won their two matches in 1998. They have played once at a Grand Slam event--Enqvist defeated Kafelnikov at the French Open last year in four sets.

Though unseeded, the experienced Enqvist is hardly the most surprising Grand Slam finalist, saying: “Almost 20 or 25 players can go to a Grand Slam tournament and have a chance to win.”

Kafelnikov gave credit to someone who did not make the trip down under.

“Pete Sampras opened the field for everybody,” Kafelnikov said. “If he would have been in the draw, he would have been the hot favorite to win and probably he would have won.

“Who knows? As soon as we found out he was not able to come and compete, it kind of opened the draw for everybody. I mean, [Andre] Agassi felt he was going to win the tournament. A lot of guys felt like that, even myself.”

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A High Court judge ruled in London that Petr Korda can keep playing despite testing positive for steroids at Wimbledon last year. The judge said that the International Tennis Federation cannot contest an appeals panel ruling that allowed Korda to escape suspension after the positive drug test.

The ITF, which was criticized for not suspending Korda for a year in accordance with its rules, said it would appeal the ruling, probably within a month.

Last month, an independent appeal committee appointed by the ITF said Korda was guilty of a drug offense. But the panel cited “exceptional circumstances,” and said Korda should not be banned because he did not know how the drug got into his system.

Under pressure from players and sports organizations, the ITF appealed the decision and said it planned to take the case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Switzerland.

That prompted Korda to take the case to the High Court.

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The Associated Press contributed to this story.