Fear Works for Kuerten

Gustavo Kuerten peered at the guy in the interview room holding up the latest issue of Time magazine featuring sisters Venus and Serena Williams on the cover and looked bemused.

“I have no contact lens, man,” he said. “I can’t see.”

For him, the sisters may as well have been the last line on an eye chart. The Brazilian was asked if he felt as though he was a “lightning rod for hostility” against the men’s game.

Feeling the hostility? Not exactly, after all, Kuerten is a guy who listens to Bob Marley.

“If you go to Brazil, I’d say they don’t put Venus Williams on the front page, they put me,” he said. “If you have the tournaments in Brazil, the tennis would be unbelievable.

“You always need the home crowd to support the sports. Five years ago nobody watched tennis in Brazil. Now, it’s the most exciting sport to follow. For Americans, for Europeans, seeing other guys winning in their own country, it’s pretty frustrating.”

He has been the other guy in Europe, winning three French Opens. Conquering New York has been considerably more difficult. The top-seeded Kuerten took his first step at this U.S. Open on Wednesday, defeating Daniel Vacek of the Czech Republic, 6-4, 6-4, 3-6, 7-5, in 2 hours 20 minutes.

Anxiety and insecurity about a first-round match and an opponent ranked No. 761 in the world were unfamiliar emotions for Kuerten. But the first round was the end last year, and he went out in four sets against the hard-serving Wayne Arthurs of Australia.

“I was a little bit extra nervous for losing at the beginning last year,” Kuerten said. “So I come to the court a little bit afraid. But right now, it’s much more relieved. I had one more day to worry because I thought I was playing yesterday.”

Vacek’s ranking, too, is rather deceptive. He missed nearly one year because of severe back problems and couldn’t even walk or sleep without pain. “I quit in my mind in October,” he said. Because Vacek was out of action so long, he received a protected ranking of 67, which allowed him to enter the Open.

He was thrilled to be playing again even though it meant resuming his career at a challenger event at Jerusalem, Israel, in May against the wishes of his wife.

“It was quite exciting. They were shooting on the hills,” he said. “The people weren’t worried at all. Most of the places are very safe.”

Vacek, 30, must have been saving up all his opinions. He criticized the state of medicine and insurance in Europe and told hilarious stories about his travel problems, including a hopelessly lost cab driver for hours in Washington, D.C.

New York cabbies aren’t his favorites, either.

“You can’t even talk to the cab drivers,” he said.

Clearly, Vacek, who was once ranked in the top 30, still has talent. He had the serve--15 aces--and the floating slice backhand to annoy Kuerten. His tactics held up until the eighth game of the fourth set. Though Vacek eventually held serve, he needed eight deuces and survived four break points, yelling at himself:

“That’s stupid.” Four games later, Kuerten broke him at 15 and moved on to the second round, in which he will play Kristian Pless of Denmark. There were no upsets among the top players in the third day of the Open. Sixth-seeded Justine Henin of Belgium, the Wimbledon finalist, had the toughest test, defeating Patty Schnyder of Switzerland, 6-7 (7), 6-1, 6-4, in the second round.

Top-seeded Martina Hingis of Switzerland, No. 3 Lindsay Davenport, No. 7 Monica Seles and No. 10 Serena Williams all won in straight sets. Two-time champion Patrick Rafter of Australia was threatened in the first set, trailing 2-5, before he tightened his game, beating Christophe Rochus of Belgium, 7-5, 6-2, 6-1, in the second round. Rafter had 19 aces to one for Rochus.

The biggest round of applause came after the second set when Rafter changed his shirt.

“I wasn’t looking up. I’ve got to change my pants sooner or later,” he said, joking.

Rafter, who is referred to as St. Pat in Australia, smiled when asked about his good-guy image.

“Listen, it’s just a matter of time before I stuff up,” he said. “It really is. I try to live as normally as I can. Sometimes, you act like a bit of a hooligan. I’ve got that in my blood a little bit. I’m pretty sensible, but at times, we have our weak points.”

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AT A GLANCE Highlights of Wednesday’s play at the $15.76 million U.S. Open tennis championships:

* WEATHER--Sunny and mild with a high of 82.

* ATTENDANCE--Day session: 30,800. Night session: 21,884. Total: 52,684.

* RESULTS--Men: No. 1 Gustavo Kuerten, No. 12 Arnaud Clement, No. 15 Goran Ivanisevic, No. 16 Tommy Haas and No. 17 Carlos Moya advanced to the second round. No. 19 Thomas Enqvist was the only seeded player to lose. Two-time champion Patrick Rafter advanced to the third round. Women: No. 1 Martina Hingis, No. 3 Lindsay Davenport, No. 7 Monica Seles and No. 10 Serena Williams all won their matches in less than an hour. Other winners included No. 6 Justine Henin, No. 12 Meghann Shaughnessy, No. 14 Jelena Dokic and No. 20 Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario.

* FEATURED MATCHES-- Arthur Ashe Stadium (play begins on all courts at 8 a.m. PDT)-- Ivan Ljubicic, Croatia, vs. Marat Safin (3), Russia; Evie Dominikovic, Australia, vs. Jennifer Capriati (2), United States; Nicolas Massu, Chile, vs. Andre Agassi (2), United States. Arthur Ashe Stadium Night Session (play begins at 4 p.m. PDT)-- Meilen Tu, United States, vs. Venus Williams (4), United States; Andre Sa, Brazil, vs. Pete Sampras (10), United States. Louis Armstrong Stadium-- Kim Clijsters (5), Belgium, vs. Allison Bradshaw, United States. Grandstand-- Fernando Meligeni, Brazil, vs. Tim Henman (9), Britain; Adriana Gersi, Czech Republic, vs. Chanda Rubin (28), United States; Amelie Mauresmo (8), France, vs. Janette Husarova, Slovakia; Mariano Zabaleta, Argentina, vs. Taylor Dent, United States; Martina Navratilova, United States, and Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario (7), Spain, vs. Bianka Lamade, Germany, and Patty Schnyder, Switzerland.

* STAT OF THE DAY--Martina Hingis beat Lina Krasnoroutskaya in 37 minutes, the shortest match of the tournament.

* QUOTE OF THE DAY--”If he’s in the locker room now, you guys want some real fireworks, stick around for about an hour.” --Justin Gimelstob, after learning that opponent Michal Tabara spit at him after their match. Tabara felt Gimelstob took too many injury timeouts.