Pavel returns a dad but bows out to Corretja
Nyree Epplett
Thursday, June 6, 2002

Romanian Andrei Pavel successively made the trip back to Paris
(from Germany) overnight after his wife Simone gave birth to a
baby boy Wednesday evening, but the No22 seed was knocked out of
the Roland Garros quarterfinal early Thursday morning, falling to
Alex Corretja in straight sets.

Ecstatic after the birth of his second child (a 51cm, 3.2kg boy
named Marius), but nevertheless exhausted after the long car journey
back and his lack of sleep, Pavel dropped three straight games to
hand the Spaniard his second consecutive semifinal berth 7-6(5) 7-5 7-5.

Pavel, the junior boys singles winner here in 1992, trailed Corretja
by two-sets-to-love, 6-7(5) 5-7 4-5, before bad light forced the
cancellation of play late Tuesday.

Knowing that the weather forecast was pessimistic and that his match
would probably be postponed until Thursday, the Romanian No1 drove
back to their home in Borgholzhausen (700km from Paris) on Wednesday
to be with his wife for the impending birth.

As expected, the end of his match was rescheduled for Thursday at
11am after rain forced the cancellation of play, so following the
birth (which came two weeks early), Pavel left at 11:30pm Wednesday
to make the journey back to Paris.

"I mean, I'm not going to forget this day for sure all my life. I
think thanks to my physiotherapist, Jan, he helped me so much. He
was driving, too. He was with all his heart beside me. That was
unbelievable to have somebody with me.

"You know, I mean, it's amazing. I don't feel even a little bit
sorry that I lost right now because I'm so happy to go back home."

Despite his best efforts to arrive in time for the delivery, Pavel
had to contend with bad weather and a number of road accidents along
the way, and was still on the road when Marius arrived.

"Actually, half an hour before that, I was talking to my wife on the
phone and she said, 'Listen, I'm relaxing, I'm trying to hold on.' I
was going, 'Well, do what you got to do. I'm driving as fast as I can.'

"Normally it's about six hours, six and a half hours drive, but I had
to drive over eight hours."

After spending a small amount of time with his wife and newborn, Pavel
hopped in the car, sleeping for one hour on the way back. When he
arrived back at Roland Garros, at 5am on Thursday morning, the No22
seed had trouble convincing security guards that he was in fact Andrei
Pavel.

"He was trying to phone with another guard over here and say, 'Mr. Andrei
Pavel is here.' He's like, 'No, they got fake passes, is not him.' He say,
'Look again.' He was looking at our faces, our passes. Cannot believe that.

"They let us come in. I had two hours sleep on the couch."

After the match Pavel was adamant that he would have made the journey,
rain or no rain, on Wednesday. "No, there was nothing crazy about it.
I think nobody could stop me here.

"I guess, I don't know, maybe if I would be in the final, semifinal,
in the beginning of it, then I guess my wife would be the only one to
say, 'See, you stay there right now.'"