Brazil's Gustavo Kuerten yesterday denied Pat Rafter the chance to become the world's number one tennis player when he outplayed him 6-4, 7-5, 7-6 (8/6) to win the Italian Open in Rome.
Kuerten, the 1997 French Open winner, combined a solid service game with a superb array of backhand winners and passing shots to keep the match fully under control.
Crowd favourite Rafter was let down by his serve throughout the first set and he was broken in both the first and fifth games. However, Kuerten then revealed his fragility when it came to handling the big points. Serving for the set at 52, he was broken even after Rafter sportingly let him retake a disputed serve.
He eventually served out for 6-4, but had no fewer than four break points at the end of a protracted fifth game in the second set before Rafter made it safe.
Kuerten broke for 4-3, with Rafter flinging his racquet to the ground in disgust after losing a close-range rally at the net and then netting a backhand.
Rafter's charging to the net paid off when he managed the second of only two service breaks all afternoon, when the Brazilian sent a lob beyond the baseline. But Kuerten broke back immediately before serving out for the set.
Both players held serve in the third set, which went to a tiebreak, which Kuerten won 86 by availing of his second match point.
Martina Hingis cruised to her first German Open title, her fourth win this year, when she defeated unseeded Frenchwoman Julie Halard-Decugis 6-0 6-1 in Berlin yesterday. The victory, worth $150,000 to the 18-year-old Swiss top seed, took only 42 minutes. She dropped just one point in the first five games.