IF A computer is ever designed to forecast the mood of the human mind, rather than merely the weather, then its binary bits would face melt-down trying to track the storms inside the head of Goran Ivanisevic.
The gangling Croat has never won a Grand Slam, has never won a tournament in the United States, and has never done very well in the US Open. There is not the slightest doubt that he would love to change this but just when all seems set fair and calm, then great tempests suddenly rage within and his game disintegrates.
So nobody could be sure which version would appear on the Stadium court early yesterday morning. There was little atmosphere initially, the US public still recovering from its Labour Day holiday and the news of the missile attack on Iraq.
Ivanisevic, the number four seed, took the first set to the merest ripple of applause against Andrei Medvedev, who entered this tournament on a run, having won the warm-up event in Commack, New York.
Three years ago, as a 19-year-old, the Ukrainian was ranked in the top 10 but knee and wrist injuries have severely hampered him since and he has dropped to number 36. When he took the second set, and when Ivanisevic began to rage at line-calls, it appeared Medvedev might repeat his quarter-final achievement of 1993.
The sun climbed, the crowd became a touch more animated, and Ivanisevic scowled. It would be wrong to suppose the spectators held their breath, for New Yorkers seemingly have no need of breath, so fast and loud do they talk, even through the tennis. But they were certainly not sure what might happen.
What did happen was that Ivanisevic controlled both himself and his tennis admirably to win 6-4, 3-6, 6-3, 7-6 and thereby reach the quarter-finals here for the first time.
Late last night the Stefan Edberg Grand Slam farewell bandwagon rolled into the quarter-finals. Facing the best homegrown British player to come along in more than a generation, Edberg called on his vast Grand Slam experience to get past 21-year-old Tim Henman 6-7, 7-6, 6-4 6-4 in a struggle that lasted for three hours and five minutes.
"I'm happy to come through to the quarters and have a day off," said Edberg (30), who last reached the US Open quarter-finals in 1992, the year he won the second of his consecutive titles, and who has announced this will be his last Grand Slam.
"Now starts the really tough matches," he said after delighting fans who cheered his every winner and gasped at his miscues. The first of his "really tough" matches will come against Henman, who reached the Wimbledon quarter-finals this year, also appears to have the strokes to win here someday.
But Edberg, playing his 54th and final major, imposed his will and his athletic serve-and-volley game on Henman to keep his inspirational run alive and raise his career record against British players to 9-0.
Edberg thrilled the partisan crowd with his stabbing, leaping and lunging volleys and with his uncanny escape artistry as he staved off 13 of Henman's 15 break opportunities.
Henman admitted that he would have liked to have gone home as the player who ended Edberg's illustrious Grand Slam career. "You know, it wasn't to be," he said. "I still think I can reflect on a very good tournament, another positive step in my career, said Henman, who upset 12th seed Todd Martin to reach the fourth round.
After so very nearly going out, to fellow American Vince Spadea in the third round, a live-set match of excruciating tedium, Michael Chang, the number two seed, also made the quarter-finals with a swift 6-3, 6-4, 6-2 win over Switzerland's Jacob Hlasek.
Chang next meets Spain's Javier Sanchez, the brother of Arantxa Sanchez Vicario, who has slipped into the last eight virtually unnoticed. Previously this year Sanchez lost in the first round of the Australian and French Opens, and Wimbledon.
A second Spaniard, Alex Corretja, also reached the last eight with a straight sets win over France's Guy. Forget. This is the first time in the Open era that there have been two Spanish players in the US quarter-finals.
Andre Agassi's quarter-final meeting with Thomas Muster is the first men's match to fully capture the attention of the Americans, although the two protagonists have been doing their best to play it down as a grudge match. But as one newspaper columnist here put it: "Nobody is buying."
Monica Seles crushed unseeded South African Amanda Coetzer 6-0, 6-3 to reach the semi-finals. Coetzer didn't even have a game point until the fourth game of the second set. She surrendered the match after 48 minutes, sending a forehand service return wide.
Seles, who has a shoulder injury that affects her serve, advanced to a meeting with fourth-seeded Spaniard Conchita Martinez. Martinez beat unseeded American Linda Wild 7-6 (8/6), 6-0.
