Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 11, 1995 TAG: 9506120072
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: New York Times
DATELINE: PARIS LENGTH: Medium
The newest French Open champion coughed, cried, drank a glass of champagne and admitted she looked forward to trading in her adrenaline for a nap. The older and sorer you get, said Steffi Graf, the harder it is to grind your way to Grand Slam titles like this one.
Still allergic to the dusty red clay of Roland Garros - or perhaps to the marigolds and zinnias that border the center court where she captured her first Grand Slam title in 1987 - and still employing the rapier forehand that launched her stellar career, Graf sneezed and sputtered to a 7-5, 4-6, 6-0 victory over Arantxa Sanchez Vicario of Spain.
Though the winner's health was fragile, her game was not.
``I did realize I was kind of dictating the games and she was playing pretty defensively,'' said Graf, who was the aggressor throughout the 1-hour, 49-minute match, which was twice interrupted by rain.
Sanchez Vicario, whose hopes for a second consecutive French Open title and third in her career withered when Graf poured on the power and pressure in the final set and lost just six points, said: ``Steffi at the end was better, and she took this match. I don't think I laid down.''
Graf, menaced for much of the past year by back problems that resurfaced to threaten her participation here, simultaneously re-established herself as the world's No. 1 player and secured her fourth French Open singles title. She is now 25-0 in 1995, with titles at all five events she has played.
Apologizing for her inability to thank her rain-splattered public in French, Graf stumbled through an obviously unrehearsed victory speech and then, in a rare public display of vulnerability, she had to relinquish her trophy briefly so she could use her hands to wipe away her tears.
These were, said Graf, a couple of shaky weeks. Besides worrying about how her back would survive the slipping and sliding necessitated by this surface, she had to cope with a sore thigh, runny eyes and an emergency that sent her coach, Heinz Gunthardt, to Sweden for two days before the semifinals.
She said the actual two weeks of the tournament were less stressful that the 10 days of practice that preceded it.
``There were some difficult weeks before this tournament began,'' said Graf, whose health forced her to miss the WTA tour for six weeks before this event began. ``My back wasn't so great when I came back from the United States, and during these weeks it was up and down whether I could play and I never really thought I could get to the finals.''
Saturday's victory brought Graf her 16th Grand Slam singles crown and left the 25-year-old German a mere two singles titles behind Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova.
``I didn't even know that I'm that close,'' said Graf, whose last Slam title came at the 1994 Australian Open. She also downplayed her recovery of the No.1 ranking from Sanchez Vicario.
``It's a nice bonus,'' Graf said, ``but I'm thinking more about the win and the tournament in general.''
Graf missed this year's Australian Open because of leg trouble, and in her previous visit to a Slam final, she lost to Sanchez Vicario at the United States Open last September, unable to defend her 1993 title there.
But beyond her reversal of a 2-0 second-set deficit with a four-game streak that eventually forced a third set, there were no comebacks Saturday by Sanchez Vicario.
``It was very specifically the first two games of the third set,'' Sanchez Vicario said. ``I made some easy mistakes with the volley and the return. I started to rush a little bit, and suddenly I was 4-0 down [in the third] and she was in a roll.''
by CNB