SINCE WINNING the title here l2 months ago, Richard Krajicek has made quite a few friends back in his native Holland. His admirable modesty, along with the time and money he has put into a junior tennis academy in Amsterdam, have won the hearts of many in that country.
Just short of a year on, though, and Krajicek was broadening his social circle on this side of the North Sea yesterday. He became the latest big name to pack his bags rather than upset his hosts and, after conceding yesterday morning that he needed to play considerably better than he had on Tuesday evening if he was to survive, he surrendered his crown with barely more than a whimper' in his resumed fourth round match against Tim Henman.
In the opening three sets Krajicek had scarcely looked much better than solid, but that had been good enough to bring all of them to tie-breaks and so, it seemed, if the fourth seed could simply step his game up a notch then victory would still be within his grasp.
Instead he played worse, considerably worse, with his service game never looking safe this time out and his baseline strokes, particularly his backhand, proving to be a major liability from the second game on.
The fifth game was to prove his undoing. A succession of poor shots at the net quickly yielded a 0-40 advantage to Henman and a fourth error, left him a break down and in serious trouble.
His only opportunity to retrieve the situation came two games later when on Henman's serve he led 30-40, but Henman served an ace for deuce. At 5-4 up Henman finished the match off with a fine cross-court volley in the next game.
Pete Sampras, meanwhile, looked briefly as though he might take a similar route yesterday as the man who beat him last year. The world number one led his match against Petr Korda 6-4, 4-2 overnight but after wrapping up the second to three he allowed the Czech right back into the match.
The pair remained deadlocked through the third set and Sampras led by five points to one in the tie break. The 16th seed staged a terrific comeback, however, winning the next four points in a row and then saving two match points before clinching the tie break 10-8 with a brilliant passing forehand down the line.
Twelve games later and the scene was repeated except that Korda this time ran away with the tie-break for the loss of just one point to level the match. In the opening game of the deciding set the American made the break through when Korda allowed a 40-30 lead to slip. From that point on Sampras always seemed certain to provide the opposition for Boris Becker in this afternoon's quarter-finals.
