Schalken Chalks Up Win
Monday, June 30, 2003
In a competition that is currently knee deep in dark horses, Sjeng Schalken
stands alone. He is the seed whom nobody knows and nobody notices and yet he
is through to the quarter finals courtesy of a clinical, efficient and,
ultimately, predictable win over Rainer Schuettler 7-5, 6-4, 7-5.
Schuettler is not supposed to be a grass court player but, then again, he was
not supposed to be a Grand Slam finalist either. Yet, six months ago, he made
his way through the wreckage of the Australian Open draw and got all the way
to the last round before falling to Andre Agassi. With a nifty return of
serve and a Velcro-like ability to stick to any opponent for as long as it
takes, he is an awkward foe and a compulsive scrapper.
Schalken, though, is nobody's pushover either. Last year he found himself in
the semi-finals of the US Open and, had he not faced a rejuvenated Pete Sampras
on a mission to make history, might have gone one stage further.
Tall and unflashy, he arrived on Court 18 with a game plan in mind. Knowing
that Schuettler would chase and scamper to get every ball back, he decided to
keep the German pinned to the baseline.
As Schalken ran him from side to side, Schuettler wore a trench in the back of
the court. The longer the match went on, the deeper Schuettler's problems
became until eventually the methodical Schalken ground him into the dust with
metronomic precision.
It was not pretty but it was effective and that is all that matters to Schalken.
This time last year he also reached the last eight and pushed Lleyton Hewitt
all the way to five sets. It may have taken him eight years to do it, but the
tall Dutchman is finally getting the hang of this grass court malarkey.
Written by Alix Ramsay
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