It's 'ciao' from Rome for Agassi

ROME, MAY 12. World number one Andre Agassi crashed out of the tennis Masters series event here on Thursday evening, as Slovakia's Dominik Hrbaty wreaked his revenge in a 6-4, 6-4 third round victory.

The top seeded American was under constant pressure from Hrbaty, a losing finalist at last month's Masters series event at Monte Carlo - also on clay, and put on an erratic centre court performance.

Too often let down by his groundstrokes, Agassi managed to pull out some superb winners - to the delight of a Foro Italico crowd - but could do nothing to stop 15th seeded Hrbaty breaking to win each set.

For the Slovak, it was sweet revenge after Agassi beat him in the semifinals of the 1999 French Open, on the American's road to the title.

This time, Agassi felt he hadn't made life difficult enough for his opponent. ``He certainly played well today'', said the American. ``He really likes the ball with a certain pace and I probably could have changed it up a little bit more and tried to get the ball out of his wheelhouse.

''But he was hitting it with conviction and hitting it pretty consistently. I thought he served well on some big points... And he played two good games at 4-5 in both sets.`` Agassi said he would decide later whether or not to play in Hamburg next week, before kicking off his title defence at Roland Garros.

Hrbaty now meets Spanish 10th seed Alex Corretja, who outclassed Fabrice Santoro 6-2, 6-3 in an one-sided night match, summed up by Corretja's 15 winners in the first set to the Frenchman's three.

Argentina's Mariano Puerta, who bundled out Russian second seed Yevgeny Kafelnikov on Wednesday, beat the 16th seeded Spaniard Juan Carlos Ferrero in a baseline slugfest 7-6 (7-5), 3- 6, 6-4.

Ferrero, 20, and voted ATP newcomer of the year last month, showed his huge potential as a stroke-player and server, but towards the end was simply outgunned by the powerfully-built Argentinian.

Kuerten will play Albert Costa, who beat fellow Spaniard Francisco Clavet 6-3, 6-2 in their third round tie. Swedish third seed Magnus Norman also reached the last eight with a 7-6 (7-4), 6-1 win over Ukrainian Andrei Medvedev. He now takes on Spain's Felix Mantilla, who beat Romanian qualifier Andrei Pavel 6-4, 6-2 in the last match of the day.

The results: third round: Alex Corretja bt Fabrice Santoro 6-2, 6-3; Lleyton Hewitt bt Thomas Enqvist 7-6 (8-6), 2-6, 6-3; Felix Mantilla bt Andrei Pavel 6-4, 6-2.

Earlier results: Gustavo Kuerten bt Younes El Aynaoui (withdrew); Dominik Hrbaty bt Andre Agassi 6-4, 6-4; Mariano Puerta bt Juan Carlos Ferrero 7-6 (7-5), 3-6, 6-4; Magnus Norman bt Andrei Medvedev 7-6 (7-4), 6-1; Albert Costa bt Francisco Clavet 6-3, 6- 3.

- AFP

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