Rampaging Rusedksi leaves Safin floundering

Tim Henman yesterday overcame the defending champion Gustavo Kuerten at the Cincinnati Masters but for once the British No1 was overshadowed by Greg Rusedski, who crushed the world's second- ranked player Marat Safin for his best win of the year.

Rusedski beat the Russian 7-6, 6-2 with a memorable performance. The second set could have been an even greater rout with the British No2's serve highly impressive.

It was misleading that Rusedski appeared in a T-shirt saying 149 mph; he no longer really is a master blaster. He did finish the first set with a 135mph ace but that is about as fast as he delivers these days.

Just as characteristic of the cleverer, remodelled Rusedski was the ace which finished the match, a 109mph sidewinder which wriggled away like an escaping snake with its kill.

Indeed the Rusedski serve contained many of the varieties and subtleties he has been trying to introduce ever since the back injury which threatened his career.

Four weeks after Wimbledon Rusedski has found the form that might well have carried him to the Wimbledon final in the weakened bottom half of the draw.

He had been knocking on the door of a quarter-final in London SW19 when a rain delay hampered him. "I missed a wonderful opportunity there, no doubt," he recalled yesterday. "But I responded by working harder and my goal is the US Open [in 19 days] and this win really gets me on my way there."

Rusedski had some help from Safin. This immense but exasperating talent is beginning to look as though it may remain always unfulfilled. The young Russian had three set points in the first-set tie-break and missed one with a forehand that he drove prodigally long.

There was the usual fretting and frowning, together with the familiar doom-laden gestures. Afterwards he said of his frustrations: "It's ridiculous, it's just horrible, it's pissing me off."

But amid the despair there were flashes of Safin's brilliance, including an astounding stop-volley winner while simultaneously measuring his 6ft 4in on the purple Decoturf.

Later Henman did a good job in eliminating Kuerten 6-3, 6-4, even if the unseeded Brazilian was only half-fit.

Kuerten moved cautiously, made unusual forehand errors and, after withdrawing from Toronto last week feeling the after-effects of hip surgery, had less appetite for the fight.

Henman found more ways to get forward. The backhand smash which helped him reach 3-1 in the second set and the low, stretching volley he made on the second point when serving for the match were trademarks of a tall man who can move unusually quickly and of a volleyer of the highest class.

Andre Agassi won too, but only by 6-4, 4-6, 6-4 against the top-20 Moroccan Younes El Aynaoui. The American is projected to meet the Wimbledon champion Lleyton Hewitt in the quarter-finals.