After Protest, Gritty Victory for Rios

Word spread through the grounds that play was being suspended on Wednesday because of dangerous conditions at Indian Wells Tennis Garden.

What’s this?

Dangerous isn’t a word you hear much around here. You wondered whether Martina Navratilova smuggled in one of her dogs past the crack security team at the entrances. Were people going hungry in the luxury suites?

No, it was weather-related. A nasty sandstorm blew in, and, for an afternoon, the desert came to tennis rather than tennis coming to the desert. Action was stopped on the outside courts for about an hour when gusts reached 39 miles per hour, knocking over chairs and creating a thin layer of slippery dirt, rendering the hard courts dangerous.

At night, the sandstorm returned, stopping play again. Marcelo Rios of Chile refused to resume his match against Michel Kratochvil of Switzerland, making his case with the chair umpire Norm Chryst and supervisor Gerry Armstrong. His sit-down strike lasted until the blowers cleaned the court.

Rios won, 6-4, 6-2, but both players had wanted to postpone the match until today.

“I think it’s time the ATP starts listening to players,” Rios said. “We’re not playing just for fun and you can’t play on a hard court with sand. It was dangerous.”

Said Kratochvil, who upset Andre Agassi in the first round: “In 24 hours I went from maybe the best match in my life to maybe the worst experience. It was unplayable conditions.”

There was no such choice for the women on the Stadium Court. Fourth-seeded Monica Seles defeated No. 9 Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario of Spain, 6-3, 3-6, 6-3, in one quarterfinal and No. 2 Martina Hingis of Switzerland beat No. 10 Amanda Coetzer of South Africa, 6-1, 6-2.

Play was interrupted on the outside courts, but Seles and Sanchez-Vicario continued.

“I don’t think we had that option [of stopping] because of TV,” Seles said of ESPN.

Seles said she would wipe her face with a towel and the towel would turn black from the dirt. Hingis said she taped her ankle as a precaution because of the slippery court.

“Every other changeover, I had to take a wet towel and just take the sand out of my eyes. And I still have it [in my eyes],” Seles said.

Seles, who has lost to Sanchez-Vicario only three times in 23 matches, stood up on changeovers.

“Just because I was getting cold today,” she said. “I know it’s going to sound weird, but I like to stand up anyway because I think the changeovers are so long, especially when you have TV time.”

Said Hingis: “I watched the Monica-Arantxa match just before. I learned from that. I was trying to use that in my game. It worked very well.”

There were three upsets on the men’s side. Todd Martin defeated No. 5 Tommy Haas of Germany, 6-4, 6-2. It was the first time he has beaten Haas in four matches. Juan Ignacio Chela of Argentina took out former champion, No. 16 Alex Corretja of Spain, 6-4, 6-0, and Jan-Michael Gambill defeated No. 13 Jiri Novak of the Czech Republic, 6-3, 6-2.

Two players with better luck regarding the wind and sand were top-seeded Lleyton Hewitt of Australia and No. 10 Pete Sampras. Hewitt defeated Andrei Pavel of Romania, 4-6, 6-3, 6-0, in the second round. That match started at 10 a.m. and Hewitt escaped before the conditions grew miserable.

“No, I didn’t request anything,” Hewitt said of the early start. “Right now, I won’t complain though. I’d rather be talking to you guys and having lunch than getting ready to play this afternoon in that weather.”

The women’s quarterfinals followed Hewitt and the weather was actually decent by the time Sampras took the court. Sampras has never lost to Albert Costa of Spain and he made it five straight matches, defeating Costa, 6-4, 6-4, in the second round.

In what is becoming a post-match tradition, Sampras had a light workout with his new coach Jose Higueras.

Since Higueras has not had much time to work with Sampras, he is fitting in these sessions when he can find the time.

“Just kind of cleaning up my ground strokes a little bit, getting pretty good pace on my backhand side, working on that a bit,” Sampras said. “It’s a process. It’s not going to happen overnight. It’s going to take some time. I’m sure Jose is looking forward to working with me when I’m not playing. He’ll grind me out there for a couple of hours, which I guess I’m looking forward to, too.”

For those not in the room, that last line was a joke. “I’ve got no choice,” he said, smiling.

*

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Featured Matches

STADIUM COURT

Starting at 10 a.m.

* Juan Ignacio Chela, Argentina vs. Yevgeny Kafelnikov, Russia

* Emmanuelle Gagliardi, Switzerland vs. Daniela Hantuchova, Slovakia

* Lleyton Hewitt, Australia vs. Jan-Michael Gambill

* Pete Sampras vs. Fabrice Santoro, France

Starting at 6 p.m.

* Monica Seles vs. Martina Hingis, Switzerland

* Todd Martin vs. Karol Kucera, Slovakia