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Guga good enough Kuerten turns in another straight-set rout in Paris
PARIS (Reuters) -- Top seed Gustavo Kuerten took a confident stride into the French Open third round on Wednesday with a 6-4, 6-4, 6-4 victory over Argentine Agustin Calleri. On another blazingly hot day on Centre Court, the Brazilian defending champion hit with his customary power to rack up his second straight-sets win of the tournament in just over two hours. "I think the experience I've gained here has helped me," said Kuerten, who also won the 1997 French Open. "You can see that at the beginning I played very well. "It's like my second home here. It was especially noisy with the crowd screaming and not always so easy to play but I like this kind of atmosphere. I think it's good for the game." It was another highly impressive display, given that Calleri is a solid claycourt player who reached the third round at Roland Garros last year, beating Felix Mantilla and Dominik Hrbaty along the way. Kuerten suffered one mini-crisis when he was broken while serving for the second set at 5-2, with Calleri holding confidently in his next service game to hint at a possible comeback. Kuerten's poise returned in the next game, though, as he held for the set and he also kept his nerve when the Argentine forced a break point early in the third. Calleri, broken in game five, had to save two match points on his own serve in game 10 but could not stop Kuerten in the next when the Brazilian played a drop shot at 40-15 which the Argentine could only scoop up over the baseline. Kuerten will face Karim Alami of Morocco in the third round.
Copyright 2003 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. |
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