Agassi dodges hold-ups

They loved it the first time. Even gave it a Mexican wave. Second time so, so. Third time ughh. Once you've seen the covers come on once, you've seen it a thousand times. Then it's time to tell the funny guy at the front with "TIM" painted on his forehead to be quiet and leave us to our misery.

No amount of cheer is cheery when it's raining at Wimbledon. Sitting hunched over, looking twice your age and grief-stricken like Mary Pierce at match point down, yesterday's "Day of Days" was a wash out.

The threat of Sir Cliff and Congratulations loomed fearfully on the horizon as the weather threw the championships into an umbrella frenzy with only three women's singles matches and two men's completed from a schedule of 16.

Perhaps that is where Henman took his cue because after the rain all we could hear above the rootin' tootin' Centre Court din was the English hope pulling the plug and Courier gurgling out of the championship.

But we know Courier's Lazaruslike abilities and his penchant for heroic encounters and with that game poised with the Englishman leading two sets to one and 4-3 up in the fourth, no one is yet down the plug hole in that match.

But out goes Wayne Arthurs, the Australian whose father Derek once played Davis Cup tennis with Ireland. Arthurs's vanquisher, Andre Agassi, blew kisses and gave the thumbs up. Crowd pleaser. Serve breaker.

Arthurs had gone 111 games without his left-hand delivery being broken before he met the fourth seed. He was the talk of the locker-room, had come through the qualifiers and three rounds and nobody had once taken his serve.

Agassi threatened it in the first game, but it took him until the second set to unlock it. After that, Arthurs opened up like a bursting dam, losing the third and fourth sets 6-1, 6-4.

"I didn't expect the versatility of his serve," said Agassi. "When you can hit four corners with a range of 30 mph difference, that's a big serve. "He can serve flat, bomb out wide in the deuce court. He can hit 129 mph. He can also hit a nasty kick 98 mph. He can blast up the middle or hit a nasty bender. He can serve your body and swing wide, with pace or without pace," he said.

It was Agassi's first taste in this championship of the high-velocity serve but not his last, although his quarter-final match against Brazilian Gustavo Kuerten will be a baseline skirmish.

Kuerten, the 11th seed, ended the dream's of Swiss qualifier Lorenzo Manta in four sets 7-5, 64, 5-7, 6-3.

"The first two times he (Kuerten) kind of routed me and last time we played I routed him. It will be interesting," said Agassi, who seeks to emulate Bjorn Borg by becoming the first player since the Swede in 1980 to win the French Open and Wimbledon in the same year. Borg actually achieved that feat in 1979 and 1979 as well.

Kuerten is in his first quarterfinal. "Hopefully he doesn't hit too hard and will let me play," said the Brazilian. Mind games already.

One of the few matches to be completed early yesterday was Stephen Nugent's first-round match in the junior tournament against Germany's Denis Gremelmayr. Nugent took just two games to move into round two of the competition having taken a commanding lead over the weekend after rain stopped play on Saturday.

The Dubliner, who will be 18 in September, led going into today's finish by a set and was 6-5 up in the second with Gremelmayr serving to stay in the match.

The German successfully served to go 6-6 in the second, sending the match to a tie-break. Once again, Nugent showed a fearlessness in coming to the net to take on his opponent's scorching ground-strokes, forcing a series of errors to take the set 7-6. He meets Britain's Richard Brooks in the second round of the competition.

Play was finally abandoned for the day shortly before 7.30 p.m. Frenchman Cedric Pioline led 13th seed Karol Kucera of Slovakia two sets to one and 1-0 while defending champion Pete Sampras was unable to begin his clash with Canada's Daniel Nestor. Britain's Greg Rusedski also failed to start his eagerly anticipated tie with seventh seed Mark Philipoussis of Australia.