No.1 on the line at Hannover


The regular ATP Tour has come to an end for 1998, and now all that remains is the Hannover world championships and the Davis Cup final. With this week's tournaments, the final lineup for the 8 players competing in Hannover was decided. It is as follows:

1) Sampras

2) Rios

3) Agassi

4) Moya

5) Corretja

6) Kucera

7) Henman

8) Kafelnikov

Yevgeny Kafelnikov edged out Greg Rusedski in the battle for the 8th spot, after Tim Henman claimed the 7th. Rusedski needed to win in Stockholm to gain a place in Hannover, and with the proviso that Kafelnikov failed to win in Moscow. But Kafelnikov won the Kremlin Cup, and Rusedski fell in the Stockholm semi-final to Sweden's Thomas Johansson. Henman assured himself of his place in Hannover when he beat Magnus Gustafsson in a quarter-final of the Stockholm event. He went on to lose in the semi-final to eventual champion Todd Martin.

The biggest news of the past fortnight was shock losses of Pete Sampras, first in the final of the Paris Open to Greg Rusedski, and then in the first round of Stockholm to Australian Jason Stoltenberg. That gave world no.2 Marcelo Rios a chance at taking the no.1 spot, but he relinquished that when he failed to win the Santiago tournament in Chile. He still has a chance to overtake Sampras, but it can only be during the ATP World Championships in Hannover. There, Sampras has to win the event in order to defend his slim lead over Rios, since he won the event last year. Rios didn't qualify last year, so will accumulate extra rankings points with any match wins he achieves in Hannover.

Rios has some ability indoors, as shown by his recent win in the Singapore Open. However, few would consider him amongst the world's top 8 on the surface, and he could be hard-pressed to win a match there. With Sampras needing to win the event, and Rios possibly only needing to win 1 match to decide the year end world number 1, it makes for an exciting finish to 1998 for men's tennis.

Tournament Results

European Indoor Tournaments

In the Eurocard Open, Richard Kraijecek defeated Yevgeny Kafelnikov by 6-4, 6-3, 6-3. During the event, Kraijecek had a win over Pete Sampras, and now has a dominant lead in his head-to-head matches with the American. Unfortunately for him, Kraijecek's season had to end after this tournament, as a result of a serious knee injury. As a result, he defaulted the place he had gained in the Hannover tournament.

The copyright of the article No.1 on the line at Hannover in Men's Tennis is owned by Joel Hunt. Permission to republish No.1 on the line at Hannover in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

Go To Page: 1 2

Articles in this Topic    Discussions in this Topic