Greg Rusedski had good reason for feeling the consolations after his 6-4, 3-6, 6-3 defeat to Yevgeny Kafelnikov in the Paris Open yesterday outweighed the disappointments despite narrowly losing to the man he beat while reaching the Grand Slam Cup semi-final a month ago.
It was the British number one's eighth quarter-final in nine tournaments, which means unless Kafelnikov wins the Paris Open Rusedski should climb one place back to his career best of number four above Goran Ivanisevic. Moreover there are even giddier heights beckoning.
Rusedski has to defend no ranking points either during next month's ATP World Championship finals in Hanover or during the Australian tournaments in January, and his form, as evidenced by 23 aces and a strong resurgence in the middle part of the match against Kafelnikov, appears to be building up again.
He could perhaps catch Michael Chang, who is the world number two but has more than 300 points to defend at the Australian Open.
Rusedski is about 600 points behind Chang and 400 behind Patrick Rafter, and might well have been another 100 closer if he had not missed a forehand volley and a backhand approach near the end against Kafelnikov. Had these been "clean", Rusedski would probably today have been contesting his seventh semi-final in nine tournaments.
That approach, sliced an agonising few inches long, denied him the chance of breaking back during a tortuous four-deuce seventh game of the final set. That volley, which slithered wide, saw Kafelnikov complete a crucial sixth game final-set break which left Rusedski in a frustrated rage.
"It was an extreme situation," said Kafelnikov, who complained with bathos that at 23 he "mentally feels old". "I had to win this match otherwise it was all over for me for Hanover. I haven't been so motivated for a long time. I had to give everything to win," he emphasised.
Rusedski made a ricketty start, strangely missing three vollies and dropping his opening service game. Nevertheless the British number one played pretty well after that, forcing his way back into it and attacking the net well against one of the best groundstrokers around. Two forehand topspin drives and two chip-andcharge backhands caused the break in the second-set sixth game and forced the close finish.
It left Kafelnikov still with plenty of story to write to get to Hanover, but Rusedski later saw one more dotted i on his World finals prologue (which barring a freak is complete). That happened when Richard Krajicek retired half way through against Jonas Bjorkman with an inflamed patella tendon in his left knee.
Guardian Service
