Tennis: Spaniard's brave showing

By TERRY MADDAFORD

The odds strongly suggest Francisco Clavet will probably not be around for Saturday's international tennis final at Stanley St, but if they handed out prizes for the bravest showing he would surely be a short-priced favourite.

The unseeded Spaniard and oldest player at the Heineken Open was banished to a back court for his match with American qualifier Michael Russell yesterday.

The few spectators were rewarded with the longest match of the tournament. And the most gripping.

At the end of the 2 1/2-hour battle, the 32-year-old who has not won on the ATP Tour since 1998, and only ever on clay, had booked himself a trip to the centre court - 3-6, 6-1, 7-6 (7-5) - for a quarter-final showdown with American third seed Jan-Michael Gambill.

Gambill, who had a busy day before rain forced an early end to the proceedings, needed only 79 minutes to see off unseeded Andreas Vinciguerra (Sweden) 6-4, 6-4.

He then returned to the court for a three-set doubles battle which he and partner Jonathan Stark lost 7-6 (7-2), 6-7 (6-8), 4-6 to top seeds David Adams (South Africa) and Argentine Martin Garcia.

In the top half of the singles draw, Austrian Stefan Koubek, who dumped top seed Franco Squillari in the first round, continued his charge with a straight-sets win over Alex Calatrava (Spain) 6-3, 7-6 (7-5).

In the quarters, Koubek will play the winner of last night's postponed match between wildcard Greg Rusedski (England) and fifth-seeded Zimbabwean Byron Black, which has been rescheduled for today.

Second-seed Dominik Hrbaty (Slovakia) needed three sets to oust Argentine Mariano Zabaleta, 4-6, 6-3, 6-3. He will now meet seventh-seeded Swede Thomas Johansson, who was too strong for Italian qualifier Marzio Martelli, 6-4, 6-3.

Spanish Davis Cup hero Juan Balcells had a surprisingly easy victory over Andrei Medvedev (Ukraine) 6-2, 6-4 to book a quarter-final against the winner of the match between American qualifier Glenn Weiner and France's Arnaud Di Pasquale, who had ousted Marcelo Rios in a first-round upset.

When rain forced the players from the court, Weiner had just wrapped up the first set 6-2.

The Hrbaty-Zabaleta clash was an error-ridden affair.

Complaining that he was struggling to find his rhythm after playing his recent tennis indoors, Hrbaty said he had played his best at the end of the match.

"Sometimes I had problems with the toss in the wind," said Hrbaty, who is looking to go one better than his previous efforts here when he reached the quarters in 1998 and 1999. "My serve can be better for sure. I would not say I started slowly. I would say bad."

In the only match on court six yesterday Clavet lost the first set 3-6 - a struggle punctuated by six service breaks. He needed just 22 minutes to beat Russell 6-1 in the second. The third set was a thriller. A break up, Russell raced to 5-3 and led 40-0 (three match points) on Clavet's serve. The Spaniard dug deep and saved those points for deuce.

The advantage see-sawed through the next 12 points, with Clavet penalised a point for unsportsmanlike behaviour towards a linesperson, was foot-faulted and handed Russell - 10 years his junior - another couple of match points to reach 4-5.

Clavet broke Russell in the next for 5-5 and eventually took it to 6-6 and a tiebreaker, which he won 7-5.

Today will be a catch-up day.