Kempes yesterday in a match which went to the wire.

The battle of two baseline sluggers went to a third-set tie-breaker, in which Austrian Koubek won the first three points but lost the next seven to bomb out of the tournament.

Kempes booked his place in the quarter-finals with a 6-2, 3-6, 7-6 (3) triumph, after Koubek had been 4-1 up with two breaks of serve in the final set.

"This is my first clay court tournament of the year and I really played well today,'' said a satisfied Kempes after securing his second win in two meetings with Koubek.

"The first set was unbelievable and after that, he just played smarter than me and I made a lot of errors.

"I was still playing well and I still had the feeling I could win the match because the games were close and I had won the first set easily.'' The Dutchman gave an almost flawless display of tennis in the first set, hitting consistently powerful groundstrokes off both sides with tremendous depth, forcing Koubek to spend most of his time well behind the baseline.

Kempes broke the left-hander's serve in the first and the seventh games and took the set 6-2.

A graphic illustration of the Dutchman's confidence came in the sixth game, when Koubek hit a deep lob, but Kempes managed to hit a spectacular overhead winner from just inside the baseline while back-tracking.

The second set went with serve up to 2-2, when the tide turned Koubek's way.

From that point, the Austrian, who is ranked 83 in the world, won eight out of the next 10 games to get an apparent stranglehold on the match.

It was a superb fightback by Koubek, who seemed to inject extra urgency into his game as he pressured his opponent into errors with mercilessly accurate and powerful groundtsrokes.

Koubek took the second set 6-3 and carried his momentum into the third set, breaking the Kempes serve in the first and fifth games to take a 4-1 lead.

It seemed inconceivable that a man on such a roll could lose from two breaks up in the final set, but that is what transpired.

Even Kempes had virtually given up hope at that point. Afterwards, he said: "I did not think I could win when I changed at 4-1, but when I broke in the next game, then I believed again that I could still win the match.'' Kempes showed immense strength of character to break back twice and restore parity at 4-4.

Serving at 5-6, Koubek saved two match points, the first when he made a rare venture to the net and somehow controlled his deft drop volley from Kempes' fiercely struck passing shot.

The decisive tiebreaker started with Kempes fluffing a relatively simple overhead and making two unforced errors to go 3-0 down.

But incredibly, Koubek once more fell apart in sight of victory and the irrepressible Dutchman polished off the next seven points to clinch the tiebreaker and with it, the match.

Kempes expressed the rush of thoughts that went through his mind at 0-3 in the tiebreaker. "I thought, `just fight and if I lose then, hard luck, I played a good match'.

"OK, I had lost two match points, one I had a chance and the other I didn't.

But I was not disappointed and told myself to just fight until the match was over.''