Thursday, July 27, 2000 | 10:19 a.m.
LOS ANGELES -- Dropping the expletive that begins with "F" wasn't what got Marcelo Rios kicked out of the Mercedes-Benz Cup Wednesday night.
Rather it was the pronoun "you" that cost Rios $3,500 in first-round prize money and cost tournament director Bob Kramer another player in a tournament in which the ball boys may soon be recruited to fill in.
Earlier in the day, American Vince Spadea became the 10th player to withdraw from the 32-player tournament because he has not fully recovered from severe dehydration he suffered in Santander, Spain, while representing the U.S. in a Davis Cup semifinal loss to the Spaniards.
"I thought it was 50-50 this morning," Spadea said. "I was hoping for a quick recovery and I am very disappointed I am not going to get to play here."
Losing Spadea was nothing compared to having Rios defaulted by ATP Tour supervisor Gayle Bradshaw for verbally abusing chair umpire Tony Nimmons while trailing 5-3 to Japan's Goichi Motomura on stadium court at UCLA's campus.
"Everybody loses in this situation," Bradshaw said. "You had a full stadium that came to see Marcelo and the tournament, unfortunately, had lost a few of (its) top names to injuries or other circumstances."
Motomura was getting ready to serve at 5-3, and after he tossed the ball, Rios put his hand up signaling that he wasn't ready to receive serve. Motomura continued with his service motion which resulted in an ace, and the chair umpire deemed that it was too late for Rios to try to stop service. Rios then approached the chair to argue the call.
"They had a discussion and in the discussion Marcelo said the magic words to the chair umpire and that was why I went on court," Bradshaw said. "Our procedure is when a player does something serious enough that may warrant an immediate end to the match, the chair umpire stops the match and calls the supervisor on court.
"Basically, it's a tense situation for all involved on the court. So I try to give every chance for the chair umpire to be absolutely 100 percent clear of what was said and how it was said and that it was directed at him and he was sure.
"He (Rios) didn't admit to saying all of them. There's a difference to adding 'you' to the end, which he (Rios) said he did not. After he said that, then I went back to the chair umpire at least three times to say, 'Are you 100 percent sure that he was looking at you and that's what he said?' And he said, 'Yes.' "
Rios, of Chile, will be forced to pay for his hotel room while in Los Angeles and pay a fine to be determined by Bradshaw at a later date. Rios denied adding the word "you" after the expletive.
"I didn't say it to him," Rios said. "I said it to me.
"He said I said it to him. I don't think that's fair. He said I said something I didn't say, that's the way it goes. It bothers me because I didn't say it to him."
Under ATP Tour rules, Bradshaw is required to take the word of the chair umpire. This year, a new rule was adopted to prevent players from being automatically defaulted after three penalties during a match to cut down on the number of early exits, but players may still be automatically defaulted for verbally abusing umpires or other improper behavior.
Motomura had a plane ticket to leave Los Angeles Friday, as he thought his chances to beat Rios were slim. He admitted he was surprised at the outcome.
"I didn't hear anything," he said of the exchange between Rios and Nimmons. "I was happy when it was over."
Spadea had been scheduled to play top-seeded Mark Philippoussis, who instead squared off against Scott Humphries. Philippoussis served up 11 aces to edge Humphries 7-5, 7-6 (2), and will play former UCLA standout Justin Gimelstob in a second-round match tonight.
After Philippoussis injured his left knee during a Wimbledon quarterfinal match against Las Vegan Andre Agassi, he took some time off and didn't start practicing again until last Thursday.
"I don't like to think I'll go into a tournament just to get match play," Philippoussis said. "Obviously it's great to win matches, but you want to go into a tournament really feeling and knowing you can win it.
"I'm here to win this tournament. It's as simple as that."
First-round winners Wednesday were: sixth -seeded Jan-Michael Gambill, a 6-3, 6-2 winner over Cecil Mamiit; Paul Goldstein, a 3-6, 6-1, 6-4 winner over Lorenzo Manta; and Laurence Tieleman, a 6-4, 6-0 winner over Harel Levy.
In second round action, fourth-seeded Michael Chang pummeled Kevin Ullyett, 6-1, 6-3; fifth-seeded Wayne Ferreira beat Paradorn Srichaphan, 7-6 (1), 4-6, 7-5; Lionel Roux defeated Jan Kroslak, 6-3, 7-6 (2); and eighth-seeded Arnaud Clement beat Neville Godwin 6-4, 4-6, 6-3.
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