Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, June 7, 1990 TAG: 9006070509
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: PARIS LENGTH: Medium
The 16-year-old second seed from Yugoslavia won her 31st match in a row and set up a championship duel with No. 1 Steffi Graf. Capriati saved five match points before belting a forehand long to end the match.
Graf, the top seed and the dominant player in women's tennis, lacked the usual sting on her forehand but still overpowered 11th-seeded Jana Novotna 6-1, 6-2 to gain her fourth straight final in this clay-court Grand Slam event.
Saturday's championship will be a replay of the final of a clay-court tournament three weeks ago in Berlin, where Seles broke Graf's 66-match winning streak.
Capriati, 14, turned pro in March and her success has stunned tennis. She reached the final of her first professional tournament, came in second in another event and blew through the first five rounds of her first Grand Slam competition without dropping a set.
Seles had problems in reaching the semis for the second straight year. She dropped her first sets of the winning streak and was two points away from a quarterfinal defeat before beating Manuela Maleeva.
Today, however, Seles' two-fisted groundstrokes made the Florida-based Yugoslav the better of the two teen standouts.
Graf, winner of all but one of the past nine Grand Slam titles and trying to regain the crown she lost to Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario last year, has not dropped a set in the tournament and has lost just 22 games in the first six rounds. She beat Novotna in 1 hour, 3 minutes.
Winning in straight sets for a men's semifinal berth on Wednesday was Andres Gomez. The 30-year-old from Ecuador made it to his first Grand Slam semifinal by defeating Thierry Champion, a worn-out qualifier from France, 6-3, 6-3, 6-4.
Gomez will play Thomas Muster in one semifinal Friday, with third-seeded Andre Agassi facing unseeded Jonas Svensson of Sweden in the other.
by CNB