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Rafter continues good form

© Joel Hunt

Pat Rafter has continued the good form he displayed in Toronto and Cincinnatti by winning the Long Island tournament. He is now on track to defend his US Open title, in which he has reached the 4th round at the time of writing. The only glitch in Rafter's record over the past 4 weeks has been an early round loss in New Haven to Guilliame Roux. But in hindsight this appears to have been more helpful than an obstruction to Rafter's attempt to defend his first grand slam title. Having played and won 3 tournaments around New Haven, he will be fresher for his few days rest.

There is always the danger that a player can play too much tennis leading up to a grand slam event, and become burnt out. This happened to Andre Agassi in 1995 leading up to the US Open, contributing to his loss to Pete Sampras in the final. Similarly Rafter in 1996 believed he had played too much tennis after losing in the first round of the US Open. But this time he appears to have the balance right.

Ivanisevic and Agassi upstaged

In New Haven Andre Agassi was upstaged by Alex Corretja, who won his 2nd career hard-court title. It was Corretja's first win over Agassi in 3 meetings, and is demonstrative of the Spaniard's superb all court skills. Corretja has previously performed well in the US, extending both Agassi and Sampras to 5 sets in the 1995 and 1996 US Open's respectively. This year his game has continued to improve, highlighted by a finalist effort at the French Open. He along with Carlos Moya appear to be standing above the rest of the top Spaniards in terms of all-court ability.

Meanwhile in Indianapolis Goran Ivansevic was surprised in the final by Slovakian Karol Kucera. Kucera blunted the powerful serving of the Croatian with razor sharp returning, winning by 6-4, 6-7, 6-2. Kucera started the year with a big win over Pete Sampras at the Australian Open, and this represents a continuing improvement.

Finally in the Boston tournament, Michael Chang claimed his first title of the year with victory over the no.1 doubles player Paul Harhauis. It's amazing to think that this time last year Chang was the world number 2, and was threatening to usurp Sampras' no.1 ranking. His game has fallen away considerably since then, and he is currently outside of the world's top 10. But this win shows that he remains a capable player on hard-courts.

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