Graf falls to Kournikova at Eastbourne
Posted: Thursday June 18, 1998 01:06 PM
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Anna Kournikova defeated Steffi Graf 6-7, 6-3, 6-4 (AP) |
EASTBOURNE, England (Reuters) -- Steffi Graf's preparations for her Wimbledon comeback took a wrong turn on Thursday when she was beaten by Russian teenager Anna Kournikova in an uncharacteristically bad-tempered match at the Eastbourne grass-court tournament.
Graf, fighting fit again after a year of injury problems, was beaten 6-7 6-3 6-4 in the quarter-finals of the $450,000 event by the sixth-seeded Kournikova, 12 years her junior at 17.
Kournikova hurt her hand in a fall during the third set and was taken to hospital straight after the match for an examination.
The Russian is due to meet either Arantxa Sanchez Vicario, declared joint winner last year after the final was abandoned due to rain, or 16-year-old American Serena Williams in the semifinals.
Graf left the centre court at Devonshire Park with her face distorted with fury. The former world number one, who has tumbled down the rankings during the best part of a year out of action but who has a protected seeding at Wimbledon, was repeatedly upset by line calls during the match.
The German has never been one to make an emotional show on court but again and again during the deciding set she complained to umpire Andrew Wynne that the line judges were making wrong calls.
In the fifth game she rounded on the baseline judge and yelled: "Can you just watch the line, please?" and after Kournikova won the first two points on the eighth game Graf cried out: "Is anybody watching this game here?"
Graf was openly upset about some of the line calls during the match (AP) | |
"It was just frustrating," Graf said afterwards. "You have a professional approach and you expect that from the umpires as well."
Graf, who has won Wimbledon seven times but missed last year's event after undergoing knee surgery, was just as cross with herself.
"I just felt that I didn't really take enough risks, I didn't go to the net enough," she said. "I had my chances and I didn't take them."
Kournikova, who played some devastating shots at the net, hurt her hand when she went sprawling across the grass as she went for the ball on the first point of the seventh game in the closing set.
Throughout the final games of the two-hour match she nursed the hand and was lucky to get the deciding break in the ninth game following two double faults from Graf.
Tournament supervisor Brenda Perry came on to hear Graf's complaint about the judges at the next changeover but the German said later: "It was too late for me by then."
Graf saved two match points in a long 10th game before putting a forehand wide on the third.
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