Sunday, January 18, 2004 AUCKLAND – A GEM OF THE SOUTH PACIFIC OCEAN Although the Australian Open is the big fish in the South Pacific, I have a very fond  flutter in my heart for the minnow across the Tasman Sea called the New Zealand International (aka the ASB Classic for the women and the Heineken Open for the men). You won’t find a more relaxed, delightful place to watch tennis than the ASB Centre in downtown Auckland, only a few spinnaker reaches from the Hauraki Gulf of America’s Cup fame. It’s a fetching old timer of a sporting landmark, but lively and durable at age 82, having come into being the same year as the present Wimbledon (1922), and with a past that includes such all-time champs as Billie Jean King and Rod Laver. Centre Court holds 3200 witnesses, all of them so close they feel they’re in the game. Sometimes you expect one of the players, not bothered at all by the noshers’ clinkle of cutlery and crystal in the courtside boxes, to pause and ask for a bite of sushi or a swig of champagne. It’s that intimate, a playroom something on the order of the 124-year-old Newport (Rhode Island) Casino, scene of the last grass court tourney in the U.S. the week after Wimbledon. Also site of the International Tennis Hall of Fame where Steffi Graf, Stefan Edberg and Dodo Cheney are to be anointed July 10. Sadly, commercialization of the game has mostly put this kind of tennis parlor out of business, and we wind up at the other end of the spectating spectrum with that monstrosity at Flushing Meadow called Arthur Ashe Stadium. But New Zealand, in its 50th year of internationalism, keeps going strong for a fortnight.  Opening week belonged to the statuesque Greek, Eleni Daniilidou, who took the WTA event for the second straight year, 6-3, 6-2. over aspiring American teen-ager Ashley Hartkleroad Then to this gorgeous land where Tolkien’s beguiling trilogy was filmed came the lord of the rectangular ring of Auckland, the high-spirited Slovak Dominik Hrbaty, to win the Heineken for a second time. You know about Hrbaty, the guy who, unimpressed by Andy Roddick’s U.S, Open triumph, immediately bumped off Andy in a Davis Cup encounter at Bratislava, and nearly led a Slovakian upset of the Americans.  But his victim in an incredibly hard-fought final, “El Nino,” is a stormy-stroking left-handed Spanish kid you’ll be hearing much more about: Rafael Nadal. With his fandango forehand that dances all over the court, his speed and gumption, Nadal is one of the more stunning 17-year-olds to come along. Not only as a shotmaker. A tall, dark hunk, too – whom a trio of teen babes saluted by decorating their bare bellies with his name, divided, like Gaul, in three parts among them: RA FA EL He just needs more experience, the lack of which may have cost him the title in his initial pro final after he led 3-0 in the third, only to fall to unrelenting pressure from Hrbaty, 4-6, 6-2, 7-5. Rafael’s heavily topspun forehand reminds me of the big gun toted by an earlier great Spanish-speaking southpaw, Guillermo Vilas out of Argentina.  Rafael comes from the same island as Carlos Moya, Mallorca, and is proudly called “our new kid” by Alex Corretja. Such good old boys of the admirable Spanish brotherhood as Carlos, Alex, Albert Costa and Davis Cup Capt. Jordi Arrese will give Nadal the kind of guidance and balance he needs in his new profession, and make sure his hat-size doesn’t expand. In some eyes (mine included), the cynosure of the men’s week was “Monsieur Legerdemain”: the little Frenchman with a big command of sleight-of-hand, Fabrice Santoro. I made a mental note to see as many of his matches that I can – singles and doubles. In this age of power, Fabrice is the master of soft touch and guile – and gets away with it. Unique. He and Mahesh Bhupathi won the doubles title over the Czechs Jiri Novak and Radek Stepanek, 4-6, 7-5, 6-3. Born on Tahiti 31 years ago, Santoro is as much an artistic strokesman with racket as that island’s denizen, Paul Gauguin, was with paint brush. Creative and appealing. Deception not destruction is his winning way, going at it with both hands on both sides. Delicate angles, dipping returns, surprise lobs, touch volleys, lightning reflexes  highlight his repertory. In singles his trickery has driven the puissant Marat Safin even crazier. The angles he cuts make Fabrice a Pythagoras in short pants. With his slick hands, if he ever depletes his tennis earnings (around $ 7 million the last time I looked), Fabrice could support his family as a pickpocket. I was sorry to see the last of him, as well as Auckland and its venerable playpen on Stanley Street – for a while anyway. I share the feelings of the champs Daniilidou and Hrbaty, and numerous other players who want to return because the tournaments, so efficiently run by Richard Palmer (women) and Graham Pearce (men), are also casual and welcoming. Where else does a violinist serenade you at the entryway, or the players mingle affably with customers and the helpful volunteer workers. But that’s the mood of Kiwi land. If New Zealand isn’t the friendliest country on earth, can anyone name a contender? <<<Back