Haas cries foul over equal pay

TENNIS:Tommy Haas, the world number nine, believes Wimbledon's administrators are wrong to bring women's prize-money in line with the men's. The move has been welcomed in most quarters, but the German, who reached the Australian Open semi-finals last month, does not agree with the decision.

"I don't think it's really fair," he said after a 7-6, 7-6 win over Amer Delic in the second round of the Morgan Keegan Championships in Memphis. "I think the depth of men's tennis is much tougher than the women's, plus we play the best of five sets."

French Open officials will next month review the issue of awarding equal prize-money to men and women at the claycourt grand slam.

"The matter is on the agenda of the executive committee's meeting scheduled on March 16th," a Roland Garros spokesman said yesterday. "We have made great progresses recently and we are keen to carry on in the right direction."

The French Open remains the only one of the four major championships not to award equal pay to male and female competitors throughout its rounds after Wimbledon agreed on Thursday to join the Australian and US Opens in offering the same amount to both genders at this year's championships.

Amelie Mauresmo earned a repeat of her Wimbledon final against Justine Henin by reaching the Dubai Open final, beating Jelen Jankovic in one of the strangest matches for years.

A black cat twice interrupted play, the umpire prolonged a scoring mistake - calling the score incorrectly over three points - to the extent that Mauresmo refused to continue, and it required the former Wimbledon referee Alan Mills to help sort it out, and four points later Jankovic fell and twisted her ankle.

That gave Mauresmo victory over the Serbian by 6-2, retired. It gave the Wimbledon champion an eagerly awaited meeting with the French Open champion.

Henin earlier recovered courageously from a nervous start to overcome Svetlana Kuznetsova 1-6, 6-4, 6-0. It was Henin's best performance since returning after the break-up of her marriage.

Today's final will also be a repeat of last year's controversial Australian Open final, during which Henin quit.

Mauresmo was asked if there would still be needle between them. "You mean, like with a doll?" she countered. "As I said at the start of the week, I know who she is."

Guardian Service