Tennis: Hrbaty powers home for first hardcourt title

By TERRY MADDAFORD

Claycourt specialists Dominik Hrbaty and Francisco Clavet had nine titles on clay between them going into the international tennis open final at Stanley St.

So Hrbaty's first hardcourt win on Saturday over a gutsy Clavet in the best match of the week-long tournament was particularly significant .

Apart from odd times in the first-round Heineken Open clash between Chilean sixth seed Marcelo Rios and unseeded Arnaud Di Pasquale - won in three tough sets by the Frenchman - the final produced the week's most gripping tennis.

The brave 32-year-old Clavet battled long and hard in his attempt to give the Spanish their first title in Auckland.

Of the top 100 players in the world in 2000, only Italian Gianluca Pozzi, aged 35, and 33-year-old Swede Magnus Gustafsson are older than Clavet. But when he broke his 23-year-old rival from the Slovak Republic in the first game and went on to take the opening set 6-4 in 43 minutes, the capacity crowd sensed a thriller.

Serving from the Redwood Stand end, Clavet dropped only one of 12 points. In contrast, at the southern end he was troubled by the swirling wind and struggled.

He was taken to deuce and beyond in the fourth game and needed 23 serves, including his only ace of the set, to win the eighth.

That effort told.

He was broken by the super-efficient Hrbaty in the second, fourth and eighth games in the second set as the Slovakian, who hit 21 clean winners, cruised home 6-2.

Hrbaty struggled to hold in the first game of the deciding set, but then broke Clavet in the next. In the fifth game, and trying to conserve his flagging energy, Clavet received a time violation warning from umpire Rudi Berger - almost the final act in his last ATP Tour event. While Clavet went on to break Hrbaty in that game and hold serve in the next, his battle was soon over as his younger rival won 4-6, 6-2, 6-3 after two hours of entertaining, if error-punctuated, tennis.

Hrbaty made it difficult for himself.

While he served four aces to Clavet's three, he had 10 double faults to one and had 58 unforced errors compared with 43 by his older rival.

The difference, though, was in clean winners - 30 to nine - which gave Hrbaty his first win in three clashes with Clavet.

Within a couple of hours they were on a flight to Melbourne for this week's Australian Open, where, if they win their first-round matches, they will meet again in the second round.

Hrbaty, the 14th seed for the open, is not overjoyed at the prospect.

"He is one of the players I don't like," said Hrbaty, in good humour, later. "Every point with him is the same. He is a fighter."

Asked why he took so long to get into the match, Hrbaty, on his third visit to Auckland and the first time he has gone beyond the quarter-finals, said: "I'm like a train needing a few kilometres to warm up. But in the end it was one of the best finals I have ever played."

Clavet, who lost no friends on his fourth trip to the Heineken, said he had tried not to run too much, but it had been difficult to get to the net against a younger opponent who was content to engage the Spaniard in a baseline slugfest.

"I started to feel a bit tired in the second set. He is a very good return player and maybe he was fitter than me."

Asked about his ATP Tour future, Clavet said he took it year by year, but added: "If I have the desire, I will play again next year."

Marius Barnard (South Africa) and American Jim Thomas, a scratch combination drawn together hours before they played their first match, went all the way in the Vodafone doubles, beating top seeds David Adams (South Africa) and Argentine Martin Garcia 7-6 (12-10), 6-4 in 1h 47m.