Rosset advanced to Saturday's semifinals against Russia's Alexander Volkov, who has a 2-0 career record against the Kremlin Cup's sixth seed. The other semifinal will pit Jacco Eltingh of the Netherlands against Chuck Adams of the United States.
Unlike Thursday night, when Kafelnikov saved a match point in the second set and overpowered his opponent in the third, against Rosset he peaked early. Down two break points in the fourth game of the first set, he fought back to equalize and get on serve. Failing to convert the break, Rosset learned a neat trick: a racket thrown in disgust at the Supreme Court's rubber surface will bounce back to shoulder level.
The players dueled evenly until the dramatic tiebreaker, and through it as well. Neither could pull away, but at 8-8 Rosset hit a tremendous outreached volley, giving him a minibreak with which to use his 200-kilometer-an-hour service delivery to serve for the set. He double-faulted.
At 10-9 the Swiss mis-hit another volley to blow set point. Finally, at 12-12, two unforced errors from Rosset gave Kafelnikov the tiebreaker, 14-12, and the home crowd erupted in applause.
After that, Rosset got back on track.
"The first two service games of the second set -- those were most important for me," he said after the match. Holding his serve allowed him to regain his composure, then begin to take chances against the higher-ranked Kafelnikov, Rosset said.
The most important point of the match came at 4-5, 30-30 in the second set, with Kafelnikov serving. Taking advantage of a short ball, Kafelnikov pounded a forehand deep to the corner that looked like a winner. Rosset barely got his racket on it to throw up a lob that nearly reached the stadium lights. Kafelnikov smashed the overhead to the opposite corner. Rosset was there and delivered a rocket return at Kafelnikov, who mis-hit the volley wide. Set point in hand, Rosset didn't flinch, hitting an inside-out forehand for a winner, and the set. Kafelnikov tried the bounce trick himself. It worked.
Rosset's serve-and-volley game was simply unanswerable during the third set, giving the Russian crowd little to cheer about. Several well-played set points put him ahead 5-3. Trailing 0-30, it seemed for a moment that Kafelnikov might pull another rabbit out of his hat. He hit a tremendous backhand winner to get to 15-30, but broke a string on the following point. He rushed the net prematurely to take a chance at the point. It didn't work. Serving at 30-40, he hit a forehand that caught the net cord and fell back on his own side, closing the match.
The crowd of more than 10,000 at Moscow's Olympic Sports Center had given its all for their country's top player throughout the match, but the support was a double-edged sword, Kafelnikov said afterward.
"You feel the pressure so much," he said.
In other quarterfinal action, Eltingh outplayed an erratic Korda, triumphing in two sets, 7-6 (7-1), 6-4.
Eltingh will play Adams, who rallied to beat Carl-Uwe Steeb of Germany, 3-6, 7-5, 6-3. Adams had ousted the tournament's second seed, Todd Martin, on Wednesday.
Volkov advanced to play Rosset on Thursday after his Czech opponent, Daniel Vacek, withdrew with a leg injury.
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