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Sánchez-Vicario keeps plugging away
Posted: Tuesday June 06, 2000 07:49 PM By Jon Wertheim, Sports Illustrated
If so, one player who this leaves behind is Spain's Arantxa Sánchez-Vicario. She's not blessed with movie-star looks, she's not gunning for cameos in movies, and she's not much of a brash trash-talker. Even her style of play is decidedly unsexy: counterpunching predicated on a deficit of power and a reservoir of will and tenacity. If the hallmark of many players is a screaming winner or 115-mph ace, Sánchez-Vicario's game was neatly summarized by a point from her fourth-round match against Barbara Schett. During a baseline rally in the second set, Sánchez-Vicario lost her footing and face-planted on the wet clay. Instead of conceding the point, as most of her colleagues would have, she grabbed her racket, rose to her feet and slapped a winner. With her left hand. She went on to win by the quintessential Sánchez-Vicario score of 0-6, 6-4, 6-2. "She just keeps on fighting," said Schett plaintively. Tuesday she did the same. Playing in -- get this -- her 13th French Open quarterfinal since 1987, she stuck to her game plan and outlasted fourth-seeded Venus Williams 6-0, 1-6, 6-2. The contrast in styles was striking. Venus smoked winners that Sánchez-Vicario could only dream of hitting, but she also committed the kind of errors her opponent would deem unthinkable. Sánchez-Vicario's strategy was simple: She kept the balls deep and waited for Venus to grow impatient. When her opponent started to find her range, Sánchez-Vicario made like a junkball pitcher and threw in a slice or uncorked a moonball. "It's important to change the pace of the ball," said Sánchez-Vicario, who will marry her boyfriend, Juan Vehills, after Wimbledon. "I know she doesn't like it that much. You get the chance to do that more often here because it's much slower." Though she lost the second set 6-1, Sánchez-Vicario did some classic body-punching. Conceding nothing, she made Williams earn the set by hitting dozens of extra balls and running the American ragged. By the time the third set commenced, one had the feeling that Williams, her ring rust still apparent, had exhausted her quotient of winners and was fighting on tired legs. Long before Venus shanked her 48th unforced error of the match, the outcome was a fait accompli. "I just think I played great today," Sánchez-Vicario said afterwards. "I've been playing better and better and you can see the improvement." On this day, anyway, people were looking.
Half volleysNavratilova and Mariaan de Swardt were winning their doubles match against sixth-seeded Alex Fusai and Nathalie Tauziat when darkness suspended play. ... Despite cool courtside temperatures, Williams played the entire match in a canary yellow "dress" that left little to the imagination. ... In the wake of his loss to Marat Safin Monday, the posters of Cedric Pioline sold outside Roland Garros had already been slashed to 50% off. ... And you thought we had gotten rid of surface specialists. Of the 16 quarterfinalists from both draws, six were Spaniards -- Alex Corretja, Albert Costa, Juan Carlos Ferrero, Conchita Martinez, Sánchez-Vicario and 17-year-old qualifier Marta Marrero. ... Speaking of Marrero, she was wrong on her prediction that she'd beat Martinez. But you have to like the confidence of a teenage qualifier who thinks she's superior to the fifth seed. ... The No. 2-seeded doubles team, Lisa Raymond and Rennae Stubbs, fell in straight sets to Anke Huber and Schett. ... Leander Paes injured his hand during the mixed doubles and is doubtful for Wimbledon. ... Still wondering why Monica Seles and Mary Pierce (seeds 3 and 6, the latter a French femme) dueled on Court Suzanne Lenglen while Corretja and Ferrero (seeds 10 and 16) fought on Court Central.
Sports Illustrated staff writer Jon Wertheim is covering the French Open for the magazine. Check back each day for a new report from Paris.
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