Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 10, 1990 TAG: 9006100112
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: D1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: The New York Times
DATELINE: PARIS LENGTH: Medium
Monica Seles, the teen-age terror whose two-fisted ground strokes have spelled a special kind of double trouble ever since she burst upon the scene here last year, became the youngest women's champion in French Open history when she ran roughshod over top-seeded Steffi Graf, 7-6, 6-4.
Seles replaced last year's champion, Arantxa Sanchez Vicario, who at 17 became the tournament's youngest victor, by displacing the same player Sanchez Vicario dethroned in 1989. Graf, a two-time champion of this event and the world's No. 1 women's player, had won eight of the previous nine Grand Slam tournaments before Saturday.
Seles, a sweet-enough 16 off the court but a merciless competitor on it, paralyzed Graf, who will turn 21 next week, with a barrage of winners launched from both sides.
Her uncanny ability to take the ball on the rise and her utter fearlessness about connecting with the sidelines allowed Seles to undermine Graf's superior serve and snub her renowned forehand bullets.
Most important, Seles' remarkable refusal to become dismayed when Graf fought her way back from a 3-0 first set deficit to hold four set points at 6 points to 2 in the tie breaker proved that the teen-ager had the mettle to match her appetite for this clay-court title.
"It's incredible because this is where it all started for me last year, getting into the semis," said the Yugoslav teenager, who was beaten then by Graf in three sets.
"But at the age of 15, I couldn't beat her mentally, and physically I wasn't as strong. But today in the final, my strategy was to just play as well as I could, no tactics; just think about it like I was in a match on my home court, and not be afraid of her."
It was the 32nd consecutive singles-match victory for Seles, who last month in Berlin ended a Graf winning streak at 66 matches.
"So far I've only lost two matches against her, so she's not a nightmare yet, and I hope she doesn't become one," said Graf, who accepted her defeat with a passivity that verged on resignation.
This was the first time in four years that Graf had lost two tournaments in a row.
Wearing the same forlorn expression that had been on her face during the match, Graf accepted her runner-up platter, wiped away a tear and stepped forward to make her concession speech, just as it began to rain.
"I'm not hitting the ball the way I used to," she said later, clearer-eyed but blankfaced. "There's a little bit of something missing."
Graf said the reasons for her confidence problem were multiple. "It's everything together," she said.
"Today when I was close, I didn't play the right shots, and that's usually something that's very strong about me," said Graf, who squandered her fourth and final set point of the first-set tie breaker by double-faulting to 6-6, her only double-fault of the match.
On the next point, Graf soared a forehand long, and Seles, with renewed confidence, gobbled up her first set point in the tie breaker by pounding a forehand winner down the line.
Although this was her first Grand Slam final, Seles played with a balance of poise and aggression to gain the $293,000 winner's check.
Graf was hardly listless on center court, but she didn't put the usual crackle into her forehand, a missing link she attributed to the lack of confidence that began to be tangible after Seles beat her in the German Open, an event she had dominated for four years.
When Graf did wind up for killing shots, as happened with the crosscourt forehand that ended the match, the radar necessary to guide them wasn't in working order.
"I just don't feel 100 percent sure of my shots," said Graf, for whom conviction in playmaking has always been a trademark.
"If I would have won the first set, I would have won the match, but I didn't," said Graf, who squandered two break points with Seles serving at 4-all in the second set.
"She took the risks, had the freshness, and she played with aggressiveness."
In the end, the match without a doubt belonged to the Yugoslav teen-ager, who broke away from the Bollettieri Tennis Academy in Florida this winter and is now trained solely by her father, Karolj, a former cartoonist, who applied sports science and physics principles to his daughter's training techniques.
The Sanchez family shared in two doubles championships.
Emilio Sanchez teamed with his Spanish compatriot Sergio Casal to beat Goran Ivanisevic of Yugoslavia and Petr Korda of Czechoslovakia, 7-5, 6-3, in the men's doubles final, which was shortened to a two-of-three-sets match because of rain.
Arantxa Sanchez Vicario teamed with another Spaniard, Jorge Lozano, to win the mixed-doubles title from Nicole Provis of Australia and Danie Visser of South Africa, 7-6, 7-6.
by CNB