It just wasn’t Guga’s day. Even Gustavo Kuerten’s Brazilian flag-waving fans got upstaged at the U.S. Open by a man who interrupted play to wave the American flag and proudly sing the national anthem during the second set.
The American patriot was bounced from his seat by security after his apparent protest to the USTA playing “America The Beautiful” instead of “The Star Spangled Banner” before all night sessions, as reported by The Post.
A lethargic Kuerten disappeared as quickly as the American patriot, dropping 10 straight games after battling No. 7 seed Yevgeny Kafelnikov to 4-4 in the first set. Nationalism was in the air yesterday and the Russians were most proud.
With Kafelnikov whipping the top-seeded Kuerten 6-4, 6-0, 6-3 in yesterday’s quarterfinals, two Russians have advanced to the Open semifinals for the first time. Marat Safin is in the other semifinal, facing Pete Sampras, while Kafelnikov will meet the winner of last night’s Andy Roddick-Lleyton Hewitt match.
An all-Russian final is still a possibility.
“For the fans back in our country, it would be great,” said Kafelnikov, who has made his second Open semifinal in three years. “I can’t even describe it to you.”
Kuerten failed to shed his tag as the best clay-court players in the world. Despite two French Open titles, Kuerten has never made it past the quarterfinals at the Open.
“Clay definitely makes him unbeatable,” said Kafelnikov, who got blasted by Kuerten at the French Open last May. “His groundstrokes, when he has time, he’s better than anybody. But seems to me, on the fast surface, he doesn’t have that, the seconds which is necessary for him to create his own game like he does on the clay. Guga doesn’t have much time to react.”
Kuerten’s serve was particularly pitiful, with no spice, and he was broken five times. And when he fell down, Kuerten lost his spirit – a far cry from Sunday night when he rallied from two sets down against Max Mirnyi to win in five sets.
“We are human, no?,” Kuerten said. “I am not a machine. Sometimes it’s like this.”
The best part of Kuerten’s day was meeting countryman Pele, who offered words of encouragement. But Pele’s aura did not rub off on the world’s No. 1 ranked tennis player yesterday.
As for the patriotic American fan, Kuerten said “I never saw something like this. And we had to wait for him to finish all the song.”