He opened the tie-break with a thunderous ace but even a Russian double fault could not rescue him. Rusedski’s went match point down by mishitting a volley and then another trademark backhand from Kafelnikov wrong-footed the British left-hander.It was Kafelnikov’s third win in their last four and gives him a fine chance to win this tournament for the second time in three years. That sort of success, he said, means more than the No 1 spot in the Champions Race “That might mean something later. The end of the year is what it’s all about.”Having famously beefed about the state of the court and his hotel accommodation earlier in the week, Kafelnikov could hardly complain about the way he, or the court, played yesterday.

But he aimed a volley or two at the fact that he is largely anonymous in world recognition terms. “I’m a little disappointed when people say the top ranking is all about Andre Agassi and Pete Sampras,” he said “I want to be part of that. Every time you open a paper people are always talking about their rivalry.”I’ve nothing against them, they’re great athletes, but I’m also playing well and looking forward to the next time I meet them and maybe beat them.”Rusedski warned the Russian: “It is hard to keep company with those two gentlemen Yevgeny needs to beat one of them in a Grand Slam final. That will put him up there.”Rusedski now has a week of practice in Britain before he heads off, along with Tim Henman, for the American outdoor hard court tournaments. With a spot of sun on that serving arm perhaps his speed record of 149mph, set at Indian Wells in 1998, might be under threat again.

It would certainly be nice to think so.Results from the ATP Tour AXA Cup indoor tennis tournament (seedings in parentheses):Singles Semi-finals(1) Yevgeny Kafelnikov (Rus) def (5) Greg Rusedski (GB) 6-3, 7-6 (4) Marc Rosset (Swit) def (4) Thomas Enqvist (Swe) 7-5, 1-6, 6-3. Tomorrow is D-Day for supermarket fruit departments. D stands for Delia, and tomorrow, on BBC2’s How to Cook, Part Two, she will tell her 4.5 million viewers how they can tell when passion fruit are ripe. In anticipation of this event, Sainsbury’s buyer of exotic fruits, Richard Squire, has ordered in whole plantations of passion fruit, as well as papaya, pineapples and lychees.

He expects the demand to be phenomenal, for Britain’s most influential cook will talk us through a tropical fruit salad

Tomorrow is D-Day for supermarket fruit departments. D stands for Delia, and tomorrow, on BBC2’s How to Cook, Part Two, she will tell her 4.5 million viewers how they can tell when passion fruit are ripe. In anticipation of this event, Sainsbury’s buyer of exotic fruits, Richard Squire, has ordered in whole plantations of passion fruit, as well as papaya, pineapples and lychees. He expects the demand to be phenomenal, for Britain’s most influential cook will talk us through a tropical fruit salad.
“Delia Smith is the mass educator,” says Squire, who still remembers the occasion in 1994 when she used limes and the store was deluged with requests for what was then an unfamiliar fruit.Tomorrow it might just be the turn of exotic fruits, about which most of us have a lot to learn. Do you know, for example, when a passion fruit is ripe? Should you buy greenish-brown smooth specimens, or discoloured, wrinkled ones? Clearly a trick question.

You choose the rubbishy ones – they are ripe and full of flavour.How about pineapples? Which are sweeter? The green and hard fruit, or those which are yellowing, perfumed and give to pressure? Common sense suggests the second (as does Delia), but the correct answer is that they are equally sweet, each containing 12 to 14 per cent sugar (There is a botanical reason for this. The pineapple is a non-climacteric fruit, which doesn’t continue to ripen after being picked. Climacteric fruits, such as the banana, continue to sweeten on the shelf.)As consumers, we know relatively little about tropical fruit. Often we are disappointed and suspect that much of what we buy has been picked too early; often it has. Exotic fruits have a long ride to market, and anything picked too ripe will be battered and won’t deliver a long shelf-life.But while in the past supermarkets had little choice but to stock what growers offered them, as exotic fruits become an increasingly lucrative and competitive choice, buyers are beginning to dictate what they want and when. Now intent on building up a 52-week supply of exotics, they circle the tropics prompting new plantings in Brazil, Chile and Colombia, in Costa Rica, Malaysia and South Africa, in Israel, India and Iran.Selling tropical fruit poses problems for the stores. They must try to hold back or accelerate ripeness; chilling to the right degree slows down activity in some fruits; others, such as bananas, will be ripened by a dose of the gas ethylene, a naturally-occurring chemical in ripening fruits.Control is especially important in handling climacteric fruits.