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Argentina toast awesome foursome
Guillermo Coria, David Nalbandian, Juan Ignacio Chela and Gaston Gaudio weren't even born when Argentina last had a men's champion at French Open.
Guillermo Coria, David Nalbandian, Juan Ignacio Chela and Gaston Gaudio weren't even born when Argentina last had a men's champion at the French Open.
That honour fell to Guillermo Vilas back in 1977 but that long wait could soon be over with all four men making it through to the quarter-finals here.
Before this year, the most Argentinians at a Grand Slam quarter-final stage had been two when Jose Luis-Clerc and Vilas reached the last eight here in 1982. That mark was equalled by Nalbandian and Coria at the US Open in 2003.
However, Nalbandian, who takes on triple champion Gustavo Kuerten on Wednesday for a place in the semi-finals, believes there is no magic formula for the success - just hard graft.
"It's great. Never in history has this happened before, so I am a little surprised because it doesn't happen every day," said the 22-year-old.
"We are a very strong team and we all work very hard. Now I hope that there will be four Argentinians in the semi-finals."
That could be a possibility with all four men managing to avoid one another in the last eight - Coria takes on former champion Carlos Moya of Spain, Gaudio facing Australia's Lleyton Hewitt while Chela meets Britain's Tim Henman.
To boost their strength, Argentina boasted eight players at the start of the French Open last week - Agustin Calleri, Juan Monaco, Guillermo Canas and Mariano Zabaleta were all beaten in earlier rounds.
However, it took Coria to beat the highly-rated Monaco while Gaudio disposed of Canas.
"I think what's happened demonstrates that Argentina has very good players and in all tournaments you get Argentinian players making semi-finals and finals particularly in the clay season," said Nalbandian.
Gaudio, at 25, is the oldest of the awesome foursome in the last eight and he is determined to make the most of what has become his best ever performance in a Grand Slam.
"I played here for the first time in 1996 and I don't know if I will still be playing after I'm 30, so there's not much time left. You have to take advantage of each time you come here."
Gaudio also believes he has a point to prove to the country's tennis authorities who have come under fire for concentrating resources on a select bunch of players.
"I think that the players who were helped tend to forget they were helped. We knew that many sacrifices were made when we were youngsters, so it makes us conscious of what has happened."
