Susan Mullane Camerawork USA, Inc.

No. 1 Gustavo Kuerten couldn't have asked to be placed in a better group
at the Tennis Masters Cup.

Now all the flying Brazilian has to do is ring up wins over men he has had great success against in the past: Juan Carlos Ferrero, Yevgeny Kafelnikov and Goran Ivanisevic. If Guga manages to make it to the semifinals, it will take an extraordinary effort from either No. 2 Lleyton Hewitt or No. 3 Andre Agassi to gain the No. 1 spot from Guga, who came into Sydney with a 48-point lead over Hewitt and 87-point advantage over Agassi.

It's hard to imagine Kuerten losing two matches and not making it out of his group to the semis. He returns Ivanisevic's serve competently enough, does everything a little better than Ferrero and owns the Spaniard mentally.

Save for his big belch of a loss to Kafelnikov in the U.S. Open quarters, Guga also has had the Russian's number the past three years. If Guga should win all three of his round-robing matches in the Ken Rosewall Group, Agassi will have to go undefeated to grab the top spot, an improbable but not impossible task, given that up until he thumped Pat Rafter on Monday, the Las Vegan hadn't won a match since September 3.

AGASSI-HEWITT MATCH DRAWING ATTENTION
The match the world is waiting for is the Agassi-Hewitt clash later in
the week, when the 20-year-old Aussie (who outlasted the fleet Sebastien
Grosjean on Monday) will pound his chest and try to prove that (as Pete
Sampras said), he has a better return of serve than the great Andre. Hewitt
doesn't have upend Andre in the round robin, but he'll need to put a scare in
Steffi's burly husband in case he faces him in the final. If Hewitt finishes
No. 1, the Adelaide rattlesnake would become youngest year-end No. 1 and the
first Aussie No. 1 in history of ATP Rankings (since 1973). That's pretty
heady stuff for a guy who just three years ago was an orange-juice boy on the
Down Under Davis Cup team. But even though Rafter is playing hurt and Andre
is rusty, they'll severely test the counterpunching Hewitt based on experience alone.

The view here is that both Agassi and Hewitt will come out of the John Newcombe Group and that Guga and Ferrero will come out of the Rosewall Group, because they are the guys with the most to play for. Agassi and Guga would put cherries on their years by finishing at No. 1, plus gain a bit of redemption for their painful U.S. Open losses. Hewitt strongly desires to be mentioned in the same breath as other Aussie legends and while he needs a more than a few Slam crowns to be seated at the roundtable with Laver, Emmo, Newk and Muscles, snaring the No. 1 ranking at age 20 would at least get him a seat at the bar. The 21-year-old Ferrero had a very disappointing year at the Slams and if he wants to be considered a major factor for next year, he must belt some of the big boys here.

Stay tuned for a look at the semis on Friday.