It’s a Big Swiss Miss for Agassi

The roller-coaster world of men’s professional tennis took a violent dip Tuesday, with the hottest player in the game, Andre Agassi, riding in the front car. The only injury was to Agassi, defending champion in this event, now called the Pacific Life Open, who was ousted in the first round by a 22-year-old Swiss player with credentials known to dozens.

When Michel Kratochvil, nicknamed Mischa, slapped a gutty backhand winner down the line to finish off his second straight tiebreaker set against Agassi, the celebration was probably deafening in Ostermundigen, Switzerland.

Kratochvil’s 7-6 (5), 7-6 (6) win, the biggest for this hard-hitting baseliner in his fourth full year on the main ATP tour, brought an abrupt halt to the run of Las Vegas’ finest.

Agassi had bounced back from an early-season wrist injury to make the final at San Jose two weeks ago, losing a highly competitive match to No. 1 Lleyton Hewitt after having 21 break points and two match points, and then win Sunday’s final at Scottsdale, Ariz., the 50th tour title of his career.

So a first-round draw against a European player with a hard-to-pronounce name seemed to be another fastball down the middle for the veteran Agassi, who has done a superb job of maintaining fitness and motivation through an 18-year career that has included seven Grand Slam titles. Almost nobody on the men’s tour has been as proficient as Agassi at grinding through these early matches against lesser-ranked players. In this regard, he is a male Martina Hingis.

But Tuesday, the grinding wasn’t enough against a player who gave back everything sent his way, and more. Nor was the grinding as easy as it once was, when the body was in its mid-20s, rather than its current 31 years, 11 months.

When he took the Stadium Court against Kratochvil, Agassi was playing his 11th match in 15 days. When he lost, he became the first defending champion to drop his first match the next year since Jim Courier lost to Patrick Rafter in 1994.

Afterward, Agassi echoed the refrain of most of the once-invincibles of the pro tour.

“These guys are too good,” he said.

He also implied that upsets such as he suffered Tuesday were not so surprising after all.

“Not a whole lot separates us,” Agassi said. “If they are playing their game, and you’re not playing yours, you can’t expect to win.”

So the gradual changing of the guard continues in a sport that has gotten used to its superstars and identifiable heroes:

* Pete Sampras struggles to beat a kid in a red shirt Monday night.

* Goran Ivanisevic can’t go anymore because of a serving shoulder held together by twine and has to withdraw Tuesday morning.

* Agassi goes out in straight sets a few hours later.

* In the night match, Michael Chang loses, 6-4, 2-6, 6-3, against Paradorn Srichapahn of Thailand, a qualifier who was favored to win. Chang, a three-time winner here, hasn’t won a match on the tour since October of last year--when he beat Ivanisevic--and got into this event only because tournament officials have a memory and a heart and gave him a wild card.

* Then, in the interviews after his big upset, Kratochvil talks about the things that have inspired him when he was a child, trying to decide whether to stick with tennis or hockey. He talks about remembering the 1989 French Open, when Chang played his sensational match against Ivan Lendl and went on to win his only Grand Slam title. When the French was played in 1989, Kratochvil was 10.

Now, Kratochvil is part of the new generation, players less intimidated by the Samprases and Agassis and more confident of their own ability to take over.

“We had a pretty tight match,” Kratochvil said. “I knew I was playing my game, going for my shots, that I had a good chance.... Today I just took them.”

Agassi was seeded fourth here, and he wasn’t the only seeded player to lose, just the most prominent. No. 3 Juan Carlos Ferrero of Spain, most comfortable on clay and against another baseliner, got a double dose of medium-fast hard courts at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden and big serving Greg Rusedski of England. Rusedski won, 6-4, 6-3.

Also falling was sixth-seeded Sebastien Grosjean of France, a 6-3, 4-6, 7-5 victim of countryman Fabrice Santoro, and 17th-seeded Nicolas Lapentti of Ecuador to qualifier Karol Kucera of Slovakia, 6-2, 6-3. Unseeded Bohdan Ulihrach of the Czech Republic, finalist here when Chang won in ‘97, went out to Albert Costa of Spain, 6-1, 3-6, 6-3. Seeded players Tommy Haas of Germany (5), Roger Federer of Switzerland (12) and Jiri Novak of the Czech Republic (13) advanced.

There were just two matches played in the women’s segment of the Pacific Life Open, and Emmanuelle Gagliardi of Switzerland, unseeded, and Daniela Hantuchova of Slovakia, seeded 18th, advanced to the semifinals.

Gagliardi cruised past Anna Smashnova of Israel, 6-2, 6-1, and became the lowest-ranked player, at No. 70, to reach the semifinals of this tournament since Stephanie Rottier at No. 76 did it in 1993. Hantuchova, who got everybody’s attention by taking Venus Williams to 7-5 in the third set in the Australian Open, beat American Lisa Raymond, seeded 12th, 6-4, 6-2.