The eagerness with which the ATP Tour, to say nothing of the sponsors and marketing men, are waiting for one of the new guns to break into the big time borders on the frantic.
To their delight Australia's 19-year-old Lleyton Hewitt, the winner of four tournaments this year, reached his first grand-slam semi-final yesterday with a pulverising straight-sets victory over Arnaud Clement, the man who knocked out Andre Agassi, the number one seed, in the second round.
Before this US Open Hewitt had never progressed beyond the last 16 of a grand-slam tournament, but after a thoroughly impressive fourth-round victory over Thomas Enqvist he ripped into Clement with typical zest and energy.
The highly gifted but frequently nervous Clement, also playing his first grand-slam quarter-final, could not cope with the unbending intensity.
Hewitt won 6-2, 6-4, 6-3 but then had to wait late into the evening to discover whether he would be playing Pete Sampras or Richard Krajicek in Saturday's semi-finals. The Australian teenager defeated Sampras in this year's Stella Artois final at Queen's, but then lost to Jan-Michael Gambill in the first round at Wimbledon.
Hewitt is more at home on hard courts than grass. He won successive tournaments at the beginning of the year in Adelaide and Sydney and has lost only one set in four matches here. "I didn't come here thinking I could win the tournament. That would have been stupid," said Hewitt.
Todd Martin, henceforth known as the comeback kid, staged another fightback from two sets down to defeat Carlos Moya 6-7, 6-7, 6-1, 7-6, 6-2 in 4 hours 15 minutes.
Martin is not known for his animated approach to tennis, being the reserved, deep-thinking, dignified type, but there were high fives all round after this victory, which earned him a quarter-final match with Thomas Johansson of Sweden. "I've never seen him that excited," said his coach Dean Goldfine.
The match finished deep into the New York night and Martin had to go on an IV drip afterwards. "The tension was unbelievably high, and Todd came up with the goods on the break points," Goldfine added.
The 6ft 6in American saved 17 of 18 break points. Moya had a match-point in the fourth-set tiebreak on Martin's serve, but crucially missed it. Thereafter his heart went out of the match, and Martin galloped through the final set. His own match-point secured, Martin lapped the court, roared on by the boisterous crowd. It was the seventh time in his career that he had recovered from two sets down.
Earlier in the evening Martina Hingis had defeated Monica Seles 6-0, 7-5 in her quarter-final to set up a repeat of last year's semi-final against Venus Williams, which Hingis won before losing to Serena Williams in the final.
"I look forward to playing her again and hopefully breaking her streak," Hingis said. "I must not get too intimidated by what she's doing or her winning streak. I've got just to hang in there, play my game and not let her overpower me."
Yesterday Elena Dementieva became the first woman to reach the last four with a 6-1, 3-6, 6-3 win over the number 10 seed Anke Huber.
Her reward will be a clash with second seed Lindsey Davenport who powered her way into the semi-finals with a commanding straight sets victory over fifth seed and defending champion Serena Williams last night.
A year after Williams dethroned the 1998 champion in the semi-finals, Davenport returned the favour, playing a near perfect match for a 6-4 6-2 victory in one hour and 29 minutes.
