There Go the Seeds at L.A. Tennis Event

The seeded players were falling all around Andre Agassi during the first three rounds of the Mercedes-Benz Cup, but through all the upsets Agassi had stood as firm as a redwood.

Friday night in the quarterfinals, however, the top-seeded player crashed with a mighty thud.

Tommy Haas, trying to resurrect his career after losing last season to a shoulder surgery, upended Agassi, 7-6 (5), 6-7 (6), 6-3 in front of 7,014 fans at the Los Angeles Tennis Center at UCLA.

The upset of Agassi was the last straw on a day when third-seeded Mardy Fish lost, 7-6 (6), 7-6 (7) to Cyril Saulnier of France.

That leaves the tournament with no seeded players in the semifinals, the first time that has happened in this L.A. event since 1973, according to the ATP.

“It’s disappointing, but I got three matches in here, plus a tough one,” said Agassi, playing for the first time in a month. “So that’s a step forward.”

Agassi seemed in total control after taking a 5-1 lead in the first set, but Haas soon served notice that the match would be a dogfight. He used an array of pinpoint passing shots from both sides, ran Agassi back and forth and sent the set to a tiebreaker.

The rest of the 2-hour, 23-minute match went back and forth with each player providing a month’s worth of highlight-quality shots. Haas served for the match at 5-4 in the second set, but Agassi ended the game with a forehand pass down the line that brought the fans to their feet.

In the second-set tiebreaker, Haas served for the match at 6-5, but double-faulted. Agassi later closed out the set with a cross-court backhand winner.

“This is what it’s all about, playing in front of 7,000 people, a night match against Andre Agassi, I mean what else can you ask for as a professional tennis player?” Haas said. “Obviously this victory is right up there with one of my greatest ones.”

Agassi, scheduled to play in Indianapolis next week, drew energy from a crowd that chanted “An-dre, An-dre” during the third set, but in the end, Haas simply was too much.

“It was a high-quality match,” Agassi said. “It was one of those matches where neither one of us could quite close out, and he ultimately got it done in the end. There were so many flip-flops in it. I played pretty well tonight. Not good enough obviously, but he had a lot to say about that.”

In the other quarterfinals, Nicolas Kiefer of Germany knocked off Greg Rusedski of Britain, 6-1, 6-4, and Jeff Morrison defeated Wesley Moodie of South Africa, 6-3, 6-4, in a match involving little-known players.

Of the four players who advanced to the semifinals, Morrison, 24, is perhaps the biggest surprise. It is the first career semifinal appearance for Morrison, who is in the Mercedes-Benz Cup as a wild card entry.

He ended last year ranked No. 144 in the world and entered this week ranked No. 107. He has spent most of the season playing Challenger events but reached the quarterfinals at Newport, R.I., last week.

Morrison reached No. 85 in the ATP rankings in 2002 but struggled after that.

All the while, he did not give up hope.

“I’m a firm believer in staying the course,” he said. “I knew how great it felt to be playing in these sorts of environments week in and week out, so when you go back to the Challenger level it’s almost a motivator to get myself back to where I know I can be.”

He had planned on traveling to Indianapolis this weekend to try to qualify for the next ATP stop. Those plans changed with his victory Friday. Not only has he earned enough ranking points for automatic entry into the main draw at Indianapolis, he will also get into the U.S. Open.

*

At a Glance

* What: Mercedes-Benz Cup.

* Where: Los Angeles Tennis Center/UCLA.

* TV: ESPN2 (3 p.m.); Tennis Channel (10:30 p.m., delayed).

* Today’s semifinals: Tommy Haas vs. Cyril Saulnier (3 p.m.); Nicolas Kiefer vs. Jeff Morrison (8 p.m.).