Costa outlasts Canas
Georges Homsi
Tuesday, June 4, 2002

No20 seed Albert Costa physically ground down No15 Argentine
Guillermo Canas to advance to the semifinal with a 7-5 3-6 6-7(3)
6-4 6-0 victory on Tuesday.

The three-hour, 51-minute marathon staged on Court Philippe Chatrier
was never going to be anything but physical. Canas had earned his
place in the last eight by wearing down No1 seed Lleyton Hewitt in
the fourth round, while Costa pounded two-time defending champ
Gustavo Kuerten en route to this match.

The two men had met twice before, Costa winning on both occasions,
including a month ago in Barcelona.

Today though, the stakes were considerably higher. Costa had gained
the quarterfinals here twice, but neither player had ever reached a
Grand Slam semifinal. This time, one of them would make it to the
last four of the only major played on their favorite surface, with
a decent chance of continuing even further.

The spectators didn't need long to realise that they were about to
witness a lengthy and hard-hitting match. Costa was the first one
to take the advantage, winning the opening set 7-5.

But Canas came back strongly to capture the second 6-3, and the
Argentine looked determined to sprint towards victory, as he surged
ahead 3-0 and held a point for 4-0 in the third. Later on he wasted
a point that would have given him a 4-1 lead, and a fierce Costa found
some very sharp angles to fight his way back to 4-4. But in the tiebreak,
Canas was the most aggressive, capturing it 7-3.

Once again, the Argentinean took an early lead in the fourth set. He
led 2-0 and then 4-2. And just when he looked certain to take victory,
Canas suddenly decided he had expended too much energy.

Costa rallied back to win the next 10 games and the match. When he
won the last point, Costa dropped on his knees like Borg used to do
at Wimbledon. Reaching his first ever Grand Slam semifinal at almost
27 years of age was definitely a very special moment.

"At the end I was telling myself 'If you don't do it now, you'll never
do it'," Costa said. "And Canas was tired and maybe a little upset too.
He played longer matches to get here. I feel so happy. Three times before
I was in the quarters in Grand Slam events. It feels so good reaching the
semis.

"Now I hope I play Alex (Corretja), because that would mean that he's
in the semis too," said the Spaniard who will play the winner of the
Alex Corretja-Andrei Pavel match. Corretja was leading two-sets-to-love
when play was suspended due to bad light, late Tuesday evening. The
match had been going three hours, 12 minutes and the Spaniard led 7-6(5)
7-5 5-4 (on serve).

If they were to meet on Friday, both Spaniards would forget for a couple
of hours, the friendship that unites them.