Today was a hazy morning in the desert. When I expressed surprise at seeing haze in the desert, one of the locals told me that it is actually air pollution, transported from Los Angeles by the west winds. By afternoon, the sun had won the battle against the haze and shone brightly on centre court. It was men's quarterfinal day, and when the dust settled we found ourselves with a powerhouse final four, with Yevgeny Kafelnikov, Pete Sampras, Lleyton Hewitt and Andre Agassi clinching semifinal berths. Th e first trophy of the week was presented at evening's end, as top seeds Arendt/Sugiyama claimed the women's doubles crown. We begin with the men's singles quarterfinals.

---

Pete Sampras (3) def. Patrick Rafter (11), 4-6, 7-6 (7-4), 6-4
Previous head to head: Sampras leads 10-4

This was the heavyweight match of the day, the first Sampras-Rafter encounter since the 2000 Wimbledon final. Wimbledon was a golden memory for Sampras, who with the victory in England won his record-breaking 13th major title. And it was a bitter memory for Rafter, who led by a set and 4-1 in the second set tie-break before faltering. "I don't want to replay it in my mind," said Rafter in Toronto last summer, "knowing I had my chance and I blew it."

The atmosphere was more like that of a final than a quarterfinal, with the fans' support divided equally between the American star and the popular Australian. Rafter's loyal supporters, the 'Roo Girls, were again on the scene with their inflatable kangaroos.

The only service break of the first set went Rafter's way, at 3-3. The Aussie, wearing a bright yellow shirt and a white cap covering his recently shaved head, was reading Sampras's serve well, and put Pete in trouble with a series of outstanding backhand returns. Rafter converted his second break point with a cracking first-serve return forcing a short pop-up volley that Rafter calmly knocked into the open court. The Rafter fans saluted their man's exploit during the changeover with the ever-popular " Aussie Aussie Aussie, oi oi oi" chant. Pat needed five set points to conclude at 5-4, but finally put in a service winner to take a 6-4 lead.

In the second set Sampras slowly began to find the range with his first serve, after a low 46% success rate in the first set. Rafter was having now difficulty returning, but was still backing up his own service games with excellent serves and net play. Neither player managed a break point, and a crucial tie-break was called for. The tie-break summary follows:

• PS to serve: solid Sampras backhand volley. 1-0 Sampras
• PR: service winner to the backhand. 1-1
• PR: the key point of the match ? Sampras returns a first serve with a ripping crosscourt forehand. 2-1 Sampras, who takes a lead he would not relinquish
• PS: Sampras serves and makes his second volley on the backhand. 3-1 Sampras
• PS: Sampras service winner. 4-1
• PR: Rafter serve and backhand volley, Sampras's backhand pass is long. 4-2 Sampras
• PR: Ace down the middle (Sampras briefly questions the call). 4-3 Sampras
• PS: Rafter makes the unwise choice of running around his backhand to hit a forehand return, and the off-balance shot is well out. 5-3 Sampras
• PS: Sampras nails a forehand volley. 6-3 Sampras
• PR: Rafter comes in behind a second serve and puts away the high volley. 6-4 Sampras
• PR: Rafter pulls a backhand volley wide. Sampras has levelled the match with the 7-4 tie-break win.

Rafter had these comments about the tie-break: "I got myself in position to make some good shots, but couldn't do it. Pete made that big shot, and that's what he does day in and day out."

Rafter appeared deflated to start the third set, and removed the white cap he had been wearing, allowing us to inspect his recently shaved scalp. Sampras jumped on the opening to break serve at love in the first game. "Four unforced errors. It was just a mental lapse," rued Rafter.

Sampras now was looking confident and sharp, serving excellently and producing an array of fine shots, notably some delicately placed slice backhands. And he finally was getting good cracks at Rafter's kicking serves. "Just reading it better, said Pete after the match. "I finally got a rhythm out there. It felt good." Rafter, who seemed to have lost the touch with his own return game, was unable to threaten the Sampras serve except for forcing one deuce at 4-3, but Pete set aside the danger with two se rvice winners.

Serving for the match at 5-4, 15-15 and with Rafter desperate for a final break, Sampras won a nose-to-nose exchange by anticipating Rafter's crosscourt forehand and reacting with a forehand reflex volley, followed by a fist-pump. "I kind of surprised myself," admitted the American. He converted his first match point with a 129 mph ace, and happily celebrated his most solid match of the year so far. Make the final: 4-6, 7-6 (7-4), 6-4.

Sampras was a smiling figure in his post-match interview, and noted similarities with last year's Wimbledon final.. "It was similar to Wimbledon last year, I felt, the way the match went," noted Sampras. "When I won that second-set breaker, I just raised it a notch. He either stayed, or maybe dropped off a touch."

Pete was clearly pleased at finally playing a solid, high-level match. "It was very good tennis, highly competitive. There's not a lot that separates Pat and I, just some chances. He took his in the first, and I got mine in the breaker and the third. It was good tennis." The stats for both were certainly eye-popping (although statistics in serve-and-volley matches can be misleading because missed volleys and passing shots are rarely counted as unforced errors): 46 winners to 7 errors for Pete, and 40 winners to 14 errors for Pat. And amazingly, given the risks they were taking with their second serves, no double faults were committed by either player. This is an especially surprising statistic coming from the double fault-prone Sampras. "You usually get your doubles fr om Pete," as Rafter noted, "but not today."

Rafter, who held his press conference after a late afternoon doubles match (which he lost as well, as Lleyton Hewitt's partner, to fellow Aussies Josh Eagle and Andrew Florent), didn't agree with Sampras's comparison with the Wimbledon final. Pat thought today's match was of much higher quality, whereas he felt (in a somewhat surprising comment) that "the first two sets of Wimbledon were as ugly as tennis can be." But overall, he was satisfied with his level of play despite obvious disappointment with t he loss. "Under the circumstances I was happy with the way I played.

Sampras's semifinal opponent will be another in-form ex-number one, Russia's Yevgeny Kafelnikov.

Yevgeny Kafelnikov (7) def. Jan-Michael Gambill, 6-4, 6-3
Previous head to head: first meeting

"Kafel" put an end to the run of unseeded Jan-Michael Gambill today. Gambill was coming off a title at Delray Beach last week and upset the reigning number one Gustavo Kuerten yesterday. But Gambill was no match for the all-court excellence of Kafelnikov today.

The Russian was firing on all cylinders today, and his versatility and excellent court movement was too much for the 23-year-old American. Kafelnikov moved the American around relentlessly, with his side-to-side placements often forcing Gambill to take one hand off the racquet and take weaker one-handed swings that Yevgeny pounced on for winners.

Kafelnikov has never performed well in the big March tournaments at Indian Wells and Key Biscayne, but feels motivated to try for the title here. His coach, Larry Stefanki, has a certain fondness for this tournament, having won it in 1985, and the blond Russian has promised to try to win one for the coach. "Looking back, the previous years that I have competed here, I haven't had much luck. The confidence is in place at the moment."

Looking ahead to the Sampras-Kafelnikov semifinal: Sampras would appear to rate as the heavy favourite in view of his six straight wins over Kafelnikov. But they have not played since 1998, and, as Sampras noted, "he's improved since then?. He's got great returns, does everything well. He serves big. He's not going to be an easy guy to beat." Kafelnikov feels the contrasting styles should make for an excellent match. "If I'm playing as good as I did today, I'm sure we'll have a good match tomorrow."

One-sided wins for Hewitt and Agassi

In the two quarterfinals in the bottom half of the draw, routs were unfortunately the order of the day, as the solid seeded players hammered unseeded challengers.

Sixth-seeded Lleyton Hewitt didn't need to call on his famous fist-pumping against the lifeless Nicolas Escude, coasting to a 6-1, 6-3 win. Escude had a devil of a time keeping the ball in court (35 unforced errors). Hewitt basically had to keep the ball in play to win points, something the solid baseliner always does well. Escude, who won yesterday thanks to a similarly blundering performance by Arnaud Clement, quipped, "I think I made exactly the same match as Arnaud made yesterday."

It was a similar scenario in the evening match, as 4th-seeded Andre Agassi, clothed in black, rebounded from his scare against Nicolas Kiefer yesterday to summarily dispose of Nicolas Lapentti, 6-2, 6-. It was a windy evening, and Lapentti seemed totally baffled by the elements. This was not the case with Agassi, who has always been a good wind player and who was in complete control of the proceedings.

The Agassi-Hewitt semifinal tomorrow should produce some stirring baseline tennis. Each has great respect for the other's game. "Agassi has had an extremely tough draw to get through," noted Hewitt, "and I'm going to have to bring it up to another level to give him a tough match."

Nicole Arendt / Ai Sugiyama (1) def. Virginia Ruano Pascual / Paola Suarez (2), 6-4, 6-4
Women's doubles final
Stadium

On The Line apologizes for having ignored the doubles action until today. It must be said that the women's doubles draw here was lacking in star power compared to last year, when the likes of Hingis, Davenport, Pierce, Seles, Capriati and Kournikova drew overflow crowds for their matches. This year Pierce, Capriati and Kournikova were no-shows, Hingis and Seles elected to skip the doubles, and Davenport was the only elite player who competed in the women's doubles tournament. The final saw the top two s eeded teams duel it out for the first trophy of the tournament, and the top seeds won in fine style.

Ai Sugiyama has surprisingly become the world's top doubles player on the strength of a marvellous 2000 season as the partner of now-retired Julie Halard-Decugis. Ai has replaced Julie with 31-year-old lefty Nicole Arendt. This has proved to be a wise choice, as we saw today.

Arendt complements Sugiyama excellently. The 5'9" native of New Jersey rules the "ad court" with her powerful forehand, is an imposing presence at the net, and possesses excellent touch, as she showed tonight with a couple of deft topspin lobs. Nicole was our Woman of the Match for her solid play, as well as for her affection for ballboys. In the second set Arendt drilled a ballboy at the net with an errant forehand, and came over to apologize to the lad, giving him a kiss on the cheek.

Sugiyama proved that her rise to the top of the doubles ranking is no fluke. She possesses sound returns, and is quick at the net, poaching with her unorthodox but effective double-fisted volleys. And she is very nice too!

As for the Spanish-Argentine Ruano Pascual/Suarez duo, they have also had a fine run of success and are fresh off a title on clay in Acapulco. But their game works less well on hard courts, as both serve and stay back, instead of charging forward. They did some damage with their strong groundstrokes, but conceding the net to an aggressive team like Arendt/Sugiyama finally proved fatal.

Quotable quotes

Patrick Rafter, weary of questions about his possible retirement at the end of the year, jokingly threatened to "kick the sh*t" out of a reporter who asked one too many questions about his retirement plans. But the players are unanimous in praising the Aussie's current form, and hoping that he reconsiders. Lleyton Hewitt's comment was typical: "I believe he has a few Grand Slams left in him, that's for sure."

Pete Sampras gave many the impression that he didn't care much for Yevgeny Kafelnikov in Australia earlier this year, when he suggested that "Kafel" was overly fond of money. Today Sampras insisted that he has a good relationship with Kafelnikov, and that it was a question of good-natured teasing. "I tease him all the time because he loves making money. He has his private jet. He plays every week. He's a capitalist?. He's usually on his cell phone calling his broker." Alluding to the downturn in the stock market this week, Pete added, "it's been a hard week for him, I guess?."