With fourth-seeded Nicolas Kiefer bundled out in the first round, it was up to Lapentti and Escudé defend the Nicolas name. Lapentti was the only seed left in the top quarter of the draw, while Escudé, who came here with few expectations after taking a month off the tour for the birth of his son Léopold, had pleasantly surprised himself earlier this week by beating 9th-seeded Cédric Pioline and then Marat Safin.

We had high hopes for a battle between these two talented young players, but the match turned out to be a little painful. Most of the rallies were patty-cake backhand to backhand exchanges, with the point usually ending in a rather banal error by either player. Escudé started the match hitting the ball more crisply than Lapentti, but by the second set his standard of play had descended to that of his opponent. Midway throught the third set, one exasperated fan exclaimed, "Get it over with!", which drew a chuckle from the fans who were still awake. There were occasional flashes of Escude's trademark down-the-line backhand, or of a big Lapentti forehand, but they were few in number.

I thought that one of the two had to start raising his game to claim the victory. That finally happened, but not until the match was almost over. With Lapentti serving at 5-6, 15-30, just two points from defeat, the 23-year-old Ecuadorean finally decided to display the form that made him an unexpected top ten player in 1999. Lapentti finally stepped into the court to hit some aggressive shots, and lashed three forehand winners in succession to force a deciding tie-break. Lapentti played a strong-serving and confident tie-break, the play-by-play of which follows:

• 0-0, NE serving: NE tries a down-the-line backhand that lands wide
• 1-0 NL: service winner down the middle
• 2-0 NL: service winner to body
• 0-3 NE: a big NE forehand forces the error
• 1-3 NE: routine NE forehand goes long
• 4-1 NL: NE dumps a backhand return in the net
• 5-1 NL: good serve followed by cross-court forehand winner
• 1-6 NE, match point: NL's slice backhand sails long
• 2-6 NE, match point: NL's topspin backhand sails long
• 6-3 NL, match point: Service winner by NL

Thankfully for Lapentti the wake-up call arrived just in time to pull this turgid affair out of the fire. After a slow start to this season that saw him retire injured from his second-round Australian Open match, Lapentti appears to be hitting his stride, as this is his third quarterfinal in succession (after Mexico City and Scottsdale). Lapentti's quarterfinal opponent will be unseeded Hicham Arazi, the Moroccan lefty who took out Andre Agassi in the first round. Arazi was hard-pressed to subdue qualifier Max Mirnyi today, 7-5, 3-6, 6-4.

This was a rip-snorter of a match seen by a small gathering on court two. It served as a happy reminder, after the Lapentti-Escudé snoozer, that not all long matches need be sleep-inducing. Sweden's Magnus Norman was razor sharp with his power serve and forehand, and his smooth and fluid two-handed backhand, but the dynamic Frenchman Sébastien Grosjean was playing extremely well also, using his blazing speed to run down many of the Swede's bombs and slapping numerous winners with his trademark inside-out forehand. Riveting stuff it was, from start to finish, with Norman standing tall at the end.

Norman started the match in excellent fashion, buffeting the diminutive Frenchman around the court to take the first set. But in the second set Grosjean seemed to really get his legs pumping, and was giving Norman troubles of his own with the forehand, and they played on even terms until the second set tie-break.

Regrettably for Norman, he played a horrible tie-break, making five unforced errors as well as an unsuccessful half volley to virtually hand the second set to Grosjean. "It's one of the toughest things in tennis," said the soft-spoken Swede, "when you lose a set you actually should have won. I was always leading in the set and I thought that I was in a good position to actually win the tiebreaker, and I lost it."

The swift young Frenchman seemed to have a letdown after his tie-break success, however, and his serve was immediately broken in the first game of the third set. Norman, cool and still playing very high-level baseline tennis, held serve the rest of the way to clinch his spot in the quarterfinal. The only danger on Norman's serve came in game eight. He fell behind 15-40 and faced three break points in this game, but saved them all with strong play (two service winners, and a forehand approach-forehand volley combination, one of Norman's rare trips to the net). Norman has been known in the past for his inability to close out matches, but he showed no signs of nerves as he served out the match with a love hold at 5-4, closing with a flourish on his first match point with another of his infrequent visits to the net, where he confidently knocked off a backhand volley. A satisfied Norman was pleased he held his nerve after the second-set tiebreak disaster: "To come back as strong as I did in the third set, it shows how strong I am in the moment, both physically and mentally."

Don't look now, but the quiet Swede Magnus Norman has climbed to number 5 in the "entry rankings" (the old 52-week system) and number 3 in the "race" rankings (the new calendar-year system that the ATP is trying rather unsuccessfully to push). A winner of five minor tour events last season, he started strong in 2000 with a semifinal appearance at the Australian Open, and reaching a Masters Series quarterfinal for the first time in his career reflects his desire to make his mark in the big events. "This year I'm trying to focus on the big tournaments. I was down in Australia, made the semifinals there. I'm already in the top 10, which was my goal for this year. Still, it's only March. I have room for improvement."

Despite his high ranking, Norman is unknown to most casual fans, but he likes it that way. "I'm not trying to make publicity, things like that.... I'm just not that kind of person. I just want to stay like Magnus Norman and not try to pretend to be anyone else." Norman is pleased to see his compatriot Thomas Enqvist also in the quarterfinals, and an all-Swedish Norman-Enqvist final is a theoretical possibility. "That would be something," said Norman. We practice together in Stockholm all the time. It's far away for us to think about that, but that would be a dream final for us both."

Norman is the highest seed left in the top of the draw (number 8 Lapentti is the other). His quarterfinal opponent will be Alex Corretja, who came from 0-4 down to take out Fabrice Santoro 7-6, 6-1 today. "I think I beat Corretja twice, I don't think I lost to him (editor's note: Norman's memory is correct!). I have a little bit of an advantage there. But it's going to be a tough match, I have to play as strong as I did today to pull through." Corretja will be tough, as he's playing his best tennis again after struggling with illnesses and allergies last year. "I believe now I'm playing every point, fighting again. I can see that I can run, hit my shots. I'm enjoying..." -- as are many tennis fans enjoying seeing Alex playing well again.

There is not much to say aboout a semi-final that turned out to be as lopsided as we feared. Dementieva showed her tremendous promise to reach the last four here -- On The Line is particularly proud of having chosen to report on her match instead of the defeat of that other Russian blonde in the second round -- but Lindsay Davenport was a major step up from Dementieva's previous opponents (Srebotnik, Serna, Dechy and Rubin). Dementieva committed 23 unforced errors (about one and a half per game) against 9 winners, and Davenport's pace was too hot to handle.

Davenport also added that she thought "the occasion slightly overwhelmed her", which is probably correct, given that she was playing the most important match of her career against the tour's hottest player. Dementieva admitted to being "nervous just a little bit", said a bigger problem was fatigue. "I think I was tired because I had to play five difficult matches. It was very tough for me, a very long week.... I hope just to have a few days off and try to play better in the next tournament, the Ericsson." No doubt that many fans who had never heard of Elena Dementieva before this week will be following her progress next week, at Key Biscayne.

So, as expected, Lindsay has reached the finals and on Saturday will play the winner of tomorrow's Hingis-Pierce semifinal. She will surely not be lacking any confidence, having beaten both Hingis and Pierce four times in succession. Davenport, the reigning Wimbledon and Australian Open champion, will be very hard for anybody to beat these days with her potent serve, powerful and accurate baseline drives, and very firm self-belief.

Men's quarterfinals set:
The men's quarterfinalists are now known. We discussed the top half in our match reports above. In the bottom half of the draw, these are the survivors:
- Mark Philippoussis (12) vs. Sjeng Schalken: The lowest-ranked player to reach the quarters, the tall, thin Dutchman Schalken has been stroking the ball beautifully in his upset wins over Kafelnikov and Costa. But he may be overmatched against the defending champion "Scud", who looks in top form and was never seriously worried in a 6-2, 6-3 win over Tommy Haas today. Scud's serves were a bit off today, but his powerful groundstrokes never gave the German a chance.
- Pete Sampras (2) vs. Thomas Enqvist (10): Sampras has struggled to subdue Wayne Ferreira and Byron Black, and his lack of success at Indian Wells in recent years has him talking about "exorcizing the desert demons". The fact that his 6-1 third set against Byron Black today was by far his best set of tennis this week might give him some hope that the satanic forces at work here might be squelched after all. The free-swinging Enqvist usually gives Sampras a tough match, but rarely a winning one: Sampras holds a 9-1 career record over the Swede. Enqvist's victim today was the entertaining Argentine Mariano Zabaleta, who attacked the net boldly in most un-Argentinian fashion, even diving to the hard court in a desperate but unsuccessful attempt to save match point. Zabaleta may have lost the match in straight sets, but the fans appreciated his galliant effort.

Women's doubles draws crowds:
Court two was packed for an entertaining doubles semifinal in the early evening. Anna Kournikova's presence may have had much to do with the overflow crowd, who were treated to an entertaining win by Kournikova and Natasha Zvereva over Chanda Rubin and Sandrine Testud, 3-6, 6-3, 6-3. Their opponents in the final will be decided tomorrow by the semi opposing Martina Hingis/Mary Pierce and Lindsay Davenport/Corina Morariu.