26 July 2003

Top seed and French Open champion Juan Carlos Ferrero suffered a surprise defeat by ninth seeded Argentine Mariano Zabaleta to dash his hopes of becoming world number one.

The Spaniard would have taken over from Andre Agassi at the top of the rankings if he had gone on to win the tournament.

But he appeared sluggish after having to play two matches in one day.

The 23-year-old had beaten 15th seed Flavio Saretta 7-6 6-3 earlier in the day but was unable to match Zabaleta in the quarter-finals a few hours later, going down 6-1 6-4.
“I’m very surprised it was such a clear victory,” said Zabaleta. “Juan Carlos always plays well but I know that he was a bit tired.”

“But to beat Ferrero on clay is the best victory for me,” the Argentine added.

The top seed said: “He played so well and I played one of my worst matches ever.”

Yet Ferrero’s progress to the last eight allowed him to take over from Wimbledon champion Roger Federer at the top of the ATP Champions Race.

Second seed Guillermo Coria also had to contest two matches in a day, although he managed to storm into the semi-finals with a ruthless 6-3 6-1 rout of eighth seed Juan-Ignacio Chela.

The 21-year-old Argentine, who was equally unforgiving in his third-round 6-1 6-0 victory over Frenchman Olivier Mutis earlier in the day, next faces 13th seed Feliciano Lopez of Spain.

Lopez wore down another Argentine, seventh seed Gaston Gaudio 6-2 6-7 7-5 in the day’s second quarter-final.

Unseeded Chilean Nicolas Massu became the first to reach the semi-finals after wearing down 2001 Kitzbuehel champion Nicolas Lapentti of Ecuador 7-5 6-4.