TENNIS: Jennifer Capriati's defence of the Australian Open title gathered pace yesterday as she moved through to the quarter-finals with a 6-3, 7-6 win over the unseeded Italian Rita Grande.
It was hardly the smoothest of transitions, though. A wily opponent and a below-par Capriati ensured that the world number one at least had to give the crowd value for money in an enthralling second-set tiebreak, which saw the American come close to proving Marcelo Rios wrong when he said that the early rounds of grand-slam tournaments are too easy for the top women.
Capriati, like almost everyone else in this event, is nursing an injury. With her thighs heavily strapped to protect a painful hip, she laboured when made to run by Grande's intelligent blend of chipping and slicing.
If Capriati is not quite shooting from the hip, however, she is certainly shooting from the lip. After seeing off Grande she levelled her sights on Rios, dismissing his comments about the women's game with a mixture of disbelief and venom.
"I think we all know what the truth is and that's just a ridiculous comment," she snapped. "What can you say? Stupidity really deserves no answer."
In Rios's defence, the facts and figures back up his argument. Wayne Ferreira and Albert Costa played more games yesterday afternoon than Martina Hingis has in the last eight days. In a tournament that prides itself on paying equal prizemoney, that smacks of unfairness, and Rios believes he is not the only one who thinks so.
"I just said what I thought about it and in the locker-room everyone agrees," he said. "It is ridiculous what is going on in women's tennis. Everybody is winning 6-0, 6-1. I'm not going to start arguing with every girl who says it's not true."
Amelie Mauresmo, the runner-up in 1999 and who now meets Capriati in the quarter-finals, came close to missing the appointment before squeezing out a 6-0, 4-6, 7-5 win over the unseeded German Marlene Weingartner.
Weingartner was hopeless in the first set and Mauresmo took full advantage, but she came unstuck in the second when the German dug her heels in.
The Frenchwoman, a break down at the start of the third set, was forced to wait for Weingartner to realise that she was on the brink of a famous win. When the penny dropped, Mauresmo struck, but it was not the sort of performance to fill her with confidence.
"I had a very good start and then maybe I wanted to do too much," Mauresmo said later. "I started to make a few mistakes and then . . . she started to hit everything and go for it."
If neither Mauresmo nor Capriati looked wholly convincing, the Belgian contingent appeared relaxed and untroubled to once more find themselves in the latter stages of a grand slam event.
Justine Henin and Kim Clijsters ensured that their nervy, intriguing rivalry will take on a new twist by setting up an all-Belgian quarter-final. Both were in devastating form, with Henin dismantling Elena Dementieva 6-0, 6-3 and Clijsters equally ruthless in dispatching Janette Husarova 6-0, 6-2.
The last time the pair met in a grand slam event, last year's French Open semi-finals, Henin choked when a set ahead and 4-2 up in the second to allow Clijsters to win, and has been busy living it down ever since.
If she gets into that position again, all eyes will be on Henin and her nerves of rubber. Given that between them they have only dropped one set so far, Rios might just be watching, too.
