TENNIS : Martin Mixes Pleasure, Pain This Summer

NEW YORK —  It has been Late Night With Todd Martin at this year’s U.S. Open tennis tournament, where the thrill of victory has been tempered by the agony of watching it.

In 1991, we had Jimmy Connors’ run on late night here, wild and crazy like the guy making it. In ‘99, we have had Martin’s hobble.

It has been gut-wrenching. It has played out both Tuesday and Thursday nights on USA network, and in retrospect, it would have played more fittingly as an episode on “General Hospital.”

Martin, seeded No. 7 in this tournament and the recipient of a vastly improved opportunity in the top half of the draw thanks to the injury departures of No. 1 Pete Sampras and No. 3 Patrick Rafter--Martin has a 2-15 record against Sampras, for example--somehow managed to make his way into the semifinals Thursday night by beating somebody named Slava Dosedel of Czechoslovakia, 6-3, 5-7, 6-4, 6-4.

That got him a Saturday date in the semifinals against another incredible battler, Frenchman Cedric Pioline, who dropped a first set Thursday to Brazilian Gustavo Kuerten, 6-4, and then ran off three straight tiebreaker wins, 7-6 (8-6), 7-6 (16-14), 7-6 (10-8).

Pioline is 30, Martin 29.

“We’ll have an old-guys semifinal,” Martin said.

As was Tuesday night’s drama on Ashe Stadium Court, Thursday night’s match was like watching a man, deprived of water for two days, run the last five miles of the Death Valley Marathon. Martin got to a match point after 2 1/2 hours and struggled to serve it out at 6-4 against the No. 95-ranked Czech, whose main claims to fame are that he is starring in a soon-to-be-released Czech movie and he has his rackets strung with smiley faces.

This medical miracle began Tuesday night, a day after Martin had come down with a bad stomach virus. His opponent was huge-serving Greg Rusedski of England, at 26 three years younger than Martin and, on this night, not the least bit encumbered by any maladies.

Quickly, Martin lost the first two sets, 7-5, 6-0. In the second set, he looked like he was tanking the match, unheard of only because anybody who knows Martin knows his set of ethics would never allow that.

As half the stadium emptied, leaving Martin for dead--some perhaps literally--his agent, Tom Ross, paced in the luxury box, deeply concerned over what he was seeing. His concern was not the score but the state of his client’s health.

“He looked like a guy who wanted to crawl under a rock and hide,” Ross said Thursday.

Ross was thinking about the United States’ Davis Cup match in Boston in July, where Martin went out to do battle with none other than Aussie Rafter. He had lost to Lleyton Hewitt in a Friday match, had felt terrible in the oppressive heat and humidity and was not sure he was capable of playing singles again Sunday.

A doctor examined him and said he wasn’t fit to play.

“This was not routine stuff, not just worries about fatigue or dehydration,” Ross said. “They were talking about things like heart problems and danger of stroke.”

But tennis politics was playing alongside tennis medicine.

Sampras, the best player in the world, was on the U.S. team, but had committed to, and expected to, play only doubles. He had done so and teamed with Alex O’Brien to win the only U.S. point. Now, with the U.S. down in the match, 2-1, everybody who knew anything about tennis expected U.S. captain Tom Gullikson to claim injury--a little sleazy but the only way within the rules he could tamper with his stated starting singles lineup of Martin and Jim Courier.

So when word of Martin’s infirmity got out, the Australians cried foul, demanding a second medical opinion. They got it, Martin was ruled OK, and what ensued was a painful sight in which Martin, playing mostly on grit and adrenaline, lost the rubber-clinching match.

“Todd never complains about things he has no control over,” Ross said, “but after that, he said they should never schedule a mid-summer Davis Cup match in the summer humidity of the East Coast. He was really hurting.”

The memory is so painful that Martin’s mother, who has never before missed a U.S. Open her son was playing in, stayed home this year.

She has missed a lot. Somehow, against Rusedski, Martin was able to dig deep for a 7-6 (7-3), 6-4, 6-4 finish. Those who stayed here to watch, and those who stayed up at home to watch, were amazed.

“He just somehow willed himself through the match,” Ross said.

When Martin left the stadium and headed for the trainer’s room, where he went through two bags of fluid fed to him intravenously, no less than John McEnroe stood in the USA broadcast booth and applauded the incredible effort.

Shortly, McEnroe, the new Davis Cup captain, was among those joining Martin in the trainer’s room. There was both the thrill of victory there, and the agony of what Martin looked like in its aftermath.

Todd Snyder, longtime trainer on the ATP Tour, who was Sampras’ trainer when Sampras vomited his way through the memorable match against Alex Corretja of Spain here in 1996, told Ross that Martin was in much worse shape Tuesday than Sampras was after Corretja.

The men’s semifinals are Saturday. For Martin, the good news is he has a day to rest. The bad news is he probably needs a month.

Men’s Semifinals

Saturday matches

* Andre Agassi (2) vs. Yevgeny Kafelnikov (3)

* Cedric Pioline vs. Todd Martin (7)