Philippoussis wins but ballgirl steals the show

IT comes to something - entertainment I believe is the word - when a ballgirl steals the show, but so it was yesterday at the Stella Artois final at the Queen's Club when Goran Ivanisevic handed his racket to 14-year-old Amy Kavanagh midway through the second set and asked her to face the venomous, cobra-spitting service of Australian Mark Philippoussis.

Here was a touch of light relief in a 53 minute match achingly devoid of anything that might have sneaked its way over the net and proclaimed itself as subtlety.

Margaret Thatcher made British industry service dominated, and these two would do the same for world tennis if the game was played purely on grass. Fortunately it is not.

Philippoussis won 7-5, 6-3 which just about says everything. He opened up with three successive aces and thereafter rallies immediately became an endangered species - until, that is, young Amy made her surprise entrance.

While Ivanisevic looked on (with some admiration) she exchanged 17 powder-puff strokes with the huge Australian after he had dollied over a serve too slow for the electric eye to record. In truth the trade of shots was not strictly within the rules, Philippoussis heading two back, and losing the final point with a right-foot volley into the net.

At the time the score was 3-3 with Philippoussis 40-0 up. On resumption of what passed for normal play he immediately double faulted and then netted a forehand volley.

Had he not fortuitously sent down another ace, then Goran's little joke might have taken on an altogether more sinister tone. There is no doubt it temporarily broke the 20-year-old Australian's concentration; had he lost his serve, a little frivolity might have swiftly turned to justifiable anger. "But it was good for the crowd," Philippoussis conceded.

It's the nearest I came to breaking him," said the Croatian with a large grin. In fact, his best chance came at 4-4 in the second set when, with the score at 30-30 Ivanisevic overhit a passing shot for a break point. He never really went close again.

Before the Australian Open, which Philippoussis missed with an arm injury, he became so disenchanted with the game, and his own perceived lack of progress, that he considered quitting for a year and lazing about on the beach.

Tony Roche, the last Australian to win this tournament, was instrumental in getting Philippoussis back on the straight and narrow together with his fitness coach, Gavin Hopper. So much so that he won on clay in Munich this April, a surface that had previously appeared anathema to his somewhat ponderous power game.

He first rushed to public attention at the Australian Open last year when he dispatched Pete Sampras in three cyclonic sets. The world number one, beaten here in the quarter-finals, has since taken ample revenge, notably in the second round of Wimbledon last year, but Philippoussis threatens to be an extremely dangerous man when the tournament begins next Monday.

"I'm dangerous too ... but I don't know for what," said Ivanisevic who has twice lost the Wimbledon final, in 1992 against Andre Agassi and two years later against Sampras. Indeed yesterday's final was about as interesting as that sterile 1994 contest.

Ivanisevic, as you might expect, does not see matters this way. Indeed yesterday he reiterated his complaint that, grass apart, the authorities are doing their level best to slow the game down. "There are no fast courts indoors anymore. In 10 years time there will be no more serve and volleyers left."

But at the last two French Opens the claycourt players have been similarly bellyaching that the Roland Garros courts are now too quick. It is a cyclical argument that will never be resolved.

Ivanisevic finished Britan's hopes of this title on Saturday when he defeated Greg Rusedski in a 20-18 third set tie-break of quaking intensity. Like a penalty shoot-out, the tie break can be the most almighty fix of jolting adrenalin, although all that is ultimately remembered is the miss. In this case it was a limp backhand by the British number two which enabled Ivaisevic to thunder down a deciding ace.

Rusedski currently looks in much better form than Tim Henman, and their respective progress at the Nottingham Open, beginning today, will be interesting.

Henman opens up against Britain's Andrew Richardson whom he beat in three sets here last week, while Rusedski plays Brazil's Gustavo Kuerten, the wonderfully exciting French Open champion who lost to Spain's Felix Mantilla in the Bologna Open yesterday. Ivanisevic and Philippoussis are taking a week's rest.