Tennis: Clay attracts Berasategui to Britain

THE ATP Tour event on clay courts here this week is so much out of season that Alberto Berasategui is taking part. The only other time the 25-year-old from Bilbao even set foot in Britain was for an overnight en route to the Orange Bowl junior tournament in Florida.

Tennis on clay, the sport's slowest surface, builds up in spring to a climax at the French Open in June. The West Hants Club used to stage one of the events leading to Paris - indeed the first open tournament in history was held here in 1968. The only obvious place to go from the clay courts in September is the beach (weather permitting).

There was great excitement a year ago. Greg Rusedski came directly from the US Open, where he was the runner-up to Pat Rafter, and confirmed his position as the first British man to reach the top 10 since computer rankings began in 1973.

Rusedski, a semi-finalist in the Samsung Open last year, decided to give the event a miss this week to rest from tournaments and attend to other commitments. Tim Henman, the British No 1, returned to Tashkent to defend the title he won on concrete courts last year. Both are due to play in next week's Davis Cup tie against India on concrete courts at Nottingham, where Britain try to win promotion to the World Group.

In the circumstances, Rusedski and Henman should not be criticised for failing to support the Bournemouth tournament. It is not their fault that the surface is out of context with the season, any more than they are to blame for being the nation's only leading players.

The Lawn Tennis Association, who bought the clay-court event from Bordeaux three years ago, at the expense of the women's indoor tournament in Brighton, is committed to the date until 2000. Only then would it be possible to put Bournemouth back on the road to Paris.

Having spent years haranguing the LTA for neglecting clay-court tennis, which provides an ideal schooling for the groundstroke game, little purpose will be served by rubbing its nose in the stuff now. The governing body might lose more than the sum of the prize money, pounds 250,000, on this week's enterprise, but may reap benefit in years to come.

Meanwhile Berasategui, the world No 16 and top seed, is making the most of his first appearance in a British tournament. He was the subject of a minor sensation a few months ago when his name appeared on the entry list for Wimbledon. We calmed down after he explained that the ATP Tour had made a clerical error.

It is not that Berasategui was told as a child that Britain was a bad place or that he is allergic to grass. He just believes that his game is. The man with the contorted forehand does not fancy his chances of trading shots from the baseline against the game's big servers.

"I'm going to go to Wimbledon for sure one day," Berasategui said yesterday, having advanced to the third round of the Samsung Open by defeating Martin Rodrigues, of Argentina, 6-3, 4-6, 6-4. "I can't finish my career without going to the tournament with the biggest history of all. I hope to have at least one round, so I hope I don't have to play a Rusedski."

Berasategui, the runner-up to his compatriot Sergi Brugera at the 1994 French Open, had suffered nine defeats in a row before arriving in Bournemouth, the loss of form partly due to a lack of confidence following an injury.

At the start of the year, he made an impact on the rubberised concrete courts at the Australian Open with consecutive victories against Andrei Medvedev, Pat Rafter, the US Open champion, and Andre Agassi.