Tennis: Korda exits with head held high

By Foster Niumata

MELBOURNE - As clocks ticked past 1 on Sunday morning and the crowd streamed home beneath a crescent moon, a gracious winner passed on his admiration to the leaden-hearted loser about how well he had borne himself this last week.

Petr Korda thanked Todd Martin.

Korda, in the eye of a swirling controversy over a positive drug test, accusations of faking an injury and insults from spectactors, wanted to exit the Australian Open with his head high and made sure of that yesterday, but minus the men's title he was trying to retain as the first champion ever to return unseeded.

He promised to fight to keep the biggest tennis title of his life and upheld that promise, too.

But without a serve as good as Martin's to get him through the tight spots, Korda lost to 15th seed Martin 7-5 4-6 7-6 5-7 6-4 in a classic third-round moon-howler.

"I said in the beginning I wanted to defend my title the best way I could and I did that," said Korda. "Just Todd was better than I was."

Korda was now going to fly home to Monte Carlo to celebrate his 31st birthday which was last Saturday, when he and Martin started their match.

Asked if he'd had a difficult week, one in which he declined to talk to fellow players and the media about his positive test for steroids at Wimbledon and the ongoing legal case, Korda, who ventured from his hotel and wife and two daughters only to play or practice, said he'd actually had an excellent time, and put it in perspective.

"For the first time, my daughter (six-month-old Nelly) roll over. I've been just having fun and finally I was starting to feel the ball better again."

However, Martin, the 1994 Open finalist, has been feeling the ball well from the buildup event in Sydney he won.

"I have served very well and as my serve goes probably I do," said Martin, who now meets Wayne Black of Zimbabwe in a draw as wide open as it was predicted.

Black has never been this far before in a grand slam, nor has Romanian Andrei Pavel (meeting Yevgeny Kafelnikov) or German Tommy Haas (facing Fabrice Santoro). Vince Spadea once made the fourth round at the United States Open but not that far since, and he has fellow American Andre Agassi today.

Among the first quarter-finalists found yesterday were first-timers Marc Rosset and Nicolas Lapentti. Rosset gave Bohdan Ulihrach nine games to earn a clash with Thomas Enqvist, and Lapentti, the first quarter-finalist from Ecuador, knocked off Australian Andrew Ilie to set up a meet with seventh seed Karol Kucera, a semifinalist last year who accounted for Wayne Ferreira in four.

Women's fifth seed Venus Williams made her sixth straight grand slam quarters when she got through Chanda Rubin 7-6 6-4 for a showdown with top seed Lindsay Davenport who has leads their matchups 6-1. Dominique van Roost, seeded 11, plays 29th-ranked Amelie Mauresmo.-