Gambill Stops Top-Seeded Kuerten

INDIAN WELLS —  Andre Agassi and Pete Sampras won matches Thursday in the Tennis Masters Series event, but Jan-Michael Gambill made the biggest noise among the American men.

Gambill, 23, of Colbert, Wash., who hits both his forehand and backhand with two hands, stunned top-seeded and top-ranked Gustavo Kuerten, 7-6 (5), 6-4, to make his way into today’s quarterfinals.

The Brazilian had been on a 14-match winning streak, but does not play as well on hard courts as he does on clay, and had to fight for his life Wednesday to beat another American youngster, Taylor Dent of Newport Beach.

Gambill, ranked 19th, missed on one match point with Kuerten serving at 3-5, then served it out the next game.

“I didn’t really serve well that last game,” Gambill said, “but I put a lot of pressure on him, made him hit shots under pressure. He missed and then it was time to get excited and celebrate a little.”

Gambill will play Russian Yevgeny Kafelnikov, who beat crowd favorite Goran Ivanisevic in the opening match of the day, 5-7, 6-2, 6-3.

Agassi and Sampras also had tough tests.

Agassi served for the match at 5-4 in of the second set against German Nicolas Kiefer but didn’t get it and had to serve it out at the same point of the third, eventually prevailing, 6-4, 5-7, 6-4.

When he stepped to the service line at 5-4 of the third, with an Indian Wells Garden Stadium crowd of 13,967 leaning forward to see if he could get it done this time, Agassi said he remembered the second set.

“I told myself to make more first serves and be more patient,” he said. “Sometimes the worry is that you play a careless game serving for the match in the second, you be patient, serve for the match in the third and you get tentative. I was concerned with that.”

So he went for it, wrong-footing Kiefer at 15-all with a forehand winner, approaching and forcing an error at 30-all, and winning the match with a nasty second-serve kicker that the German punched harmlessly into the net.

“Somebody was going to have to come out there and win that third,” Agassi said. “I just feel good I closed it out there in the end.”

Agassi, seeded fourth, will play a quarterfinal match today against Ecuador’s Nicolas Lapentti, another baseliner, who took apart 10th-seeded serve-and-volley artist Tim Henman of England, 6-4, 6-4. Henman made 35 unforced errors and failed at the net, where he lives or dies. He died there Thursday, failing to get the point 25 of the 58 times he tried.

The winner of the Agassi-Lapentti match will play the winner of the match between Lleyton Hewitt and Nicolas Escude. Hewitt, a speedy baseliner from Australia seeded sixth, made quick work of former finalist Bohdan Ulihrach of the Czech Republic, 6-2, 6-4, and Escude did the same to 13th-seeded Arnaud Clement of France, 6-1, 6-2. Hewitt’s win took 1:08, Escude’s 1:02. Lapentti and Escude are unseeded.

The top half of the men’s bracket has the potential to match the appeal of Agassi’s half.

Sampras made sure of that when he beat Sebastein Grosjean of France, 6-1, 7-6 (7), in the night match.

Sampras, seeded third, sailed through the first set--”I dictated; I did what I wanted to do,” he said--and then had to break back twice to get into the tiebreaker. In the tiebreaker, he saved one set point with a clutch backhand volley into the corner and then pressured Grosjean to miss on the second match point.

“A couple of points here and there, that was it,” Sampras said. “I was fortunate I got through it.”

Sampras will play popular Australian Patrick Rafter today in a rematch of their memorable Wimbledon final last year, won by Sampras.

“Pat’s one of the last true serve-and-volleyers we have in the game,” Sampras said. “It will be a match of a couple of points.”

Rafter, who has won two U.S. Open titles, needed 2 hours 2 minutes to eliminate defending champion Alex Corretja of Spain, 4-6, 6-3, 6-4. He broke Corretja’s serve in the seventh game of the third set with a deep volley that the Spaniard couldn’t handle. Rafter, playing on a Stadium 2 Court that had in its packed stands the legendary Australian player Rod Laver, said he was thrilled with the victory and pleased with the quality of the competition.

“It was great tennis,” Rafter said. “It was one of those matches where you come off and say [to your opponent] ‘Good match, just too bad.’ ”

Corretja was seeded eighth, Rafter 11th.

Ivanisevic, unseeded and in the twilight of a career that took him as high as No. 2 in the world and to three Wimbledon finals, fought hard against Kafelnikov before dropping his level of play a notch.

“Nothing to say about my game,” the Croatian said. “I play good, he play better, and he beat me.”

Ivanisevic entertained with grimaces, grumbles, soccer headers of the tennis ball, racket bangs to the court and one full-fledged racket toss.

“I tossed it nicely,” he said. “It landed nicely, like an airplane. No warning, beautiful. That’s the art of throwing rackets.”

Ivanisevic further endeared himself to his partisan crowd when, midway through a competitive third set, he reversed a call that had one of Kafelnikov’s serves ruled as long. Ivanisevic just walked to the other side to receive, and the referee changed the score.

“That just showed that Goran is such a gentleman on the court,” Kafelnikov said, “even though he probably wanted to win as badly as I did.”