Hrbaty Surprises No. 2 Safin

The crumpled, dented racket next to Marat Safin’s courtside chair summed up his Australian Open experience against Dominik Hrbaty of Slovakia in the fourth round.

And if the picture needed a caption, Safin was quite able to provide one.

“It is a little bit disaster,” he said.

That certainly might be fitting, not only for Safin, but for most of the cornerstones of the tour’s “New Balls, Please” campaign. The 14th-seeded Hrbaty dispatched the second-seeded Safin of Russia in straight sets Sunday, winning, 6-2, 7-6 (6), 6-4.

At least Safin almost made it through the first weekend. Top-seeded Gustavo Kuerten of Brazil went out in the second round, and seventh-seeded Lleyton Hewitt of Australia exited in the third, in five sets, at the hands of former French Open champion Carlos Moya of Spain on Saturday night.

Moya got the decisive break when Hewitt double-faulted on break point at 5-5 in the fifth set, winning, 4-6, 6-1, 5-7, 6-2, 7-5. The overly emotional Hewitt had received a code-violation warning late in the fifth and was fined $2,000.

The difference from the Safin defeat is that Kuerten and Hewitt lost to former top 10 players, Kuerten having lost to Greg Rusedski of Britain in the second round.

Hrbaty, while a solid performer, does not quite fit that category. He reached the semifinals of the French Open in 1999 but has had little success at any other Grand Slam event. At the Australian Open, Hrbaty had not won a singles match since 1997. This year, he nearly went out to a lightly regarded qualifier, Jean-Rene Lisnard of France, in the first round. Hrbaty lost the first two sets and prevailed in five.

But Safin, the reigning U.S. Open champion, said he let Hrbaty look good, committing 47 unforced errors.

“I think he played very good today and I just played, as you can see the unforced errors, I make many, and played very badly,” he said. “These kind of guys, they are hitting the ball very hard, you have to move them around.

“I didn’t play today. There was something wrong with me. I couldn’t move. Just too many mistakes. I didn’t make anything special to beat him.

“I can’t play this way being No. 2 in the world. That’s not my tennis. It is ridiculous what I make on the court.”

Hrbaty, 23, survived an attack of nerves in the second-set tiebreaker. He needed four set points to win it, 8-6, squandering one when he missed a relatively easy overhead smash.

“I just played well today and I feel the ball great. I was playing a little bit faster than Marat, keeping him under pressure,” said Hrbaty, who had seven aces and no double faults. “I think he was a little bit under pressure.”

He will play No. 12 Patrick Rafter of Australia in the quarterfinals. Rafter, who said this may be his final Australian Open, lifted the locals, who had been in a world of hurt after Hewitt’s five-set demise on Saturday. Rafter never let No. 8 Tim Henman of Britain establish any sort of rhythm, imposing his serve-and-volley game from the start.

Some scores are deceptive. But Rafter’s 6-2, 6-3, 6-3 victory was painfully accurate for Henman. Rafter seemed to have more problems afterward, trying to rip his shirt off and toss it into the crowd, a la Andrew Ilie. Rafter could only rip so much and started to laugh at himself. Finally, he pulled it off over his head and tossed it to a spectator in Rod Laver Arena.

“I probably prefer to play someone like Dominik, rather than Safin,” Rafter said.

Though Rafter has won two U.S. Open titles, he had not gone past the fourth round at the Australian Open until Sunday.

“Maybe we should put down some grass again,” he said, joking. “It’s really a special day for me.”

For about a set and a half, it looked as though there could be a second Australian in the quarterfinals. Ilie took the first set against defending champion and sixth-seeded Andre Agassi and stayed on even terms through eight games of the second, stunning Agassi with a spectacular display of shot-making.

Agassi kept his composure and has been around enough to know how to withstand the siege. He kept the charismatic Ilie moving around the court, wearing him down and winning the fourth-round match, 6-7 (1), 6-3, 6-0, 6-3, in 2 hours 15 minutes.

“I have to say it’s much more enjoyable watching him than playing him,” Agassi said.

Even Agassi was wondering when the shot-making would break down in the second set.

“Well, up to that point he made me a believer,” Agassi said. “I did feel like if I could somehow get to his legs, he’s going to start making errors. But I wasn’t going to assume that was going to get it done. I felt like at some stage I needed to step it up.”