Vintage Monica Down Under
Seles beats Graf, sets up semi showdown with Hingis
Posted: Wednesday January 27, 1999 08:45 PM
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Seles: "Steffi won't give you a free point, so I knew that even at 5-love, the match is never over against Steffi."
AP |
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) -- Steffi Graf's nerves frazzled, Mary
Pierce's shots misfired and the Australian Open's clashes of
champions fizzled.
Monica Seles and Martina Hingis followed their game plans to
perfection, both extending impressive Australian winning streaks as
they advanced to a semifinal meeting.
In a match of two four-time champions, Seles pounded winners
down the lines, and retrieved some of Graf's best shots in a 7-5,
6-1 victory Wednesday. In 33 Australian Open matches, she has never
lost.
Hingis, the two-time defending champion, won her 19th
consecutive Australian Open match by outmaneuvering 1995 champion
Pierce 6-3, 6-4.
Thursday's other semifinal will be between No. 1 Lindsay
Davenport, who won her first Grand Slam event last year in the U.S.
Open, and France's Amelie Mauresmo, a former world junior champion.
On the men's side, the last two Americans went out, with
15th-seeded Todd Martin, a 1996 Wimbledon semifinalist, done in by
his erratic backhand and No. 10 Yevgeny Kafelnikov's accuracy.
Kafelnikov, the 1996 French Open champion and the only surviving
men's seed, won 6-2, 7-6 (7-1), 6-2.
He advanced to a semifinal with 33rd-ranked Tommy Haas, a German
who beat beat American Vince Spadea 7-6 (7-5), 7-5, 6-3. In the
other semifinal, Sweden's Thomas Enqvist will face 91st-ranked
Nicolas Lapentti of Ecuador.
No. 6 Seles and No. 10 Graf started with a heavy-hitting replay
of some of their six Grand Slam tournament finals. But that all
changed with Graf serving for the first set at 5-4.
Her serve broke down, the rest of her game followed and Seles
won eight games in a row before Graf's famed forehand helped her
win one last game.
"I missed a couple of close first serves, and then a couple of
double faults in between, and gave her so many chances with the
second serves," Graf said. "I was thinking, `What am I doing
wrong?' and totally got lost in it."
Graf said she couldn't remember ever suffering such a lapse
before.
Hingis notched her 19th straight victory at the Australian and third in a row against former champion Mary Pierce AP |
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"'Obviously, I got tight and nervous, but I don't know why I
couldn't change it around any more," said the 29-year-old German,
the holder of 21 Grand Slam titles who missed much of 1997 and 1998
with injuries.
"I couldn't focus on the next point. I was just throwing the
balls all over."
Seles is back after missing two Australian Opens because of
injuries and personal reasons. Her last Grand Slam tournament title
was the 1996 Australian, which followed a 21/2-year absence from
tennis while recovering from a stabbing at a tournament in Hamburg,
Germany.
"I was just really proud of myself today. I just played my game
the way I should have played all the years," said the 25-year-old
two-fisted hitter who has added a one-hand forehand to her arsenal,
widening her reach on the left-hand side.
"I think it would help me tremendously, so I hope I'll be bold
enough to just keep hitting them."
Seles said she had no special feeling about playing Graf,
adding, "I really get a special feeling when I play any top
players."
No. 2 Hingis said that against Seles, "You just have to keep
her on the run and get a lot of balls back and ... be faster than
her. She just goes for everything."
Against Pierce, Hingis said, "I was attacking her serve very
well, and I hit some great returns down the line."
No. 7 Pierce stands wide of the center to serve, "so I had open
lines and I went for them. That was very important because she was
attacking my serve."
Pierce used her power to set up some opportunities, but often
missed or hit right to where Hingis was expecting the ball.
With a chance to break back to 2-2 in the second set, she hit a
forehand long and then, after a good serve return put Hingis out of
position, gave the 18-year-old Swiss player a ball she could lob
back for a winner.
"She really surprised me how she played today. She hit some
amazing shots at times," Pierce said. "I felt like I had a few
chances. ... I was making a few too many unforced errors, and I
missed a few easy shots."
Pierce also said an abdomen strain hindered her serving, and a
cough and sore throat left her "a little winded and a little
weak."
Copyright 2003 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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