Gustavo Kuerten falls to Popp music

Gustavo Kuerten falls to Popp music
Kadambari Murali/AFP

JULY 2: The third round line-up of the men's singles at the All England Club saw only seven seeds of 16 survive the carnage. Joining French Open women's titlist Mary Pierce among those who didn't make it was Brazil's male champion at Roland Garros, Gustavo Kuerten.

Kuerten gave his fourth round place away to unseeded German Alexander Popp in just over an hour-and-a-half. Popp has aroused local interest here because he holds a dual passport -- he has a British mother and the British have only Tim Henman left in the draw.

Popp, who has sent out tentative feelers that he may not mind playing for Britain if the incentive is enough, did well enough for his cause with a 6-2 7-6 (2) 6-3 win.

Coming back to Andre Agassi's incomplete match of the day before, which the world number one (on the entry system) and last year's runner-up won 6-4 2-6 7-6 (3) 2-6 10-8, it had to be a classic case of what not to do to win. It was a rather subdued Agassi who took to Centre Court at 2 pm on Saturday. He actually, had the easier task.

It could not have been easy for Martin to regroup after the long break, as he would have had to get two big serves in to hold on to the advantage. In the end, he didn't. Two second serves were enough to serve out the game.

Agassi seemed a little out of sorts and Martin took advantage, breaking him again in the seventh game and holding to take the set to the decider.

Agassi's erratic form continued into the fifth set, he was not anticipating as well as he normally does and giving Martin, not the fastest man on the Tour, ample time to go for his shots. Even the statistics show a decided tilt in Martin's favour. He had 28 aces and eight doubles faults, to Agassi's 11 aces and 11 service mess-ups.

The US Open champ had a terrible second service game in the final set, where he hit all over the place and acted like he had a death wish. He began by missing a simple volley and ended by muffing an easy overhead. Despite that, and 24 unforced errors, Agassi just held on till Martin, clearly suffering from goose bumps, just fell apart.

His service fell apart at a crucial juncture, when he was serving for the match, and he double-faulted to give the momentum back to Agassi. The latter held on to the next game despite three double faults and came back to eventually take the match. Agassi admitted later he was lucky but added that he wasn't going to let Martin win easily.

``I thought if he has to win, let him earn it. I didn't want someone to come out on top of a five-set match because the other guy played badly.''

Meanwhile, the incomplete mixed doubles match between Mahesh Bhupathi-Martina Navratilova against the Dutch pairing of Jan Siemerink and Miriam Oremans will hopefully be completed today, as it is scheduled as the fourth match on Court 3. When bad light suspended play the night before last, the Dutch combo was leading 6-4 6-7 (5) 9-8.

Swede Thomas Enqvist also had the sword of Damocles poised over his head, when he was two sets down in his match rain-interrupted match against German qualifier Christian Vinck. Enqvist, seeded nine and the only seed besides Pete Sampras left in the top half of the draw, finally managed to come through when play resumed on Centre Court. He won 6-3 6-7 (4) 2-6 6-3 6-3.

Six-times champion Pete Sampras remained on course for a seventh crown and a record 13th Grand Slam singles title after he beat fellow American Justin Gimelstob 2-6 6-4 6-2 6-2 in two hours, seven minutes to book a meeting with Jonas Bjorkman of Sweden.

And fellow American Lindsay Davenport was similarlyuntroubled as she hammered Paola Suarez of Argentina 6-4 6-2. Second seed Davenport won in 63 minutes and next plays fellow American Jennifer Capriati.