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Steffi Graf Admiration Thread Vol 2

864K views 6K replies 140 participants last post by  Michael! 
#1 ·
This is a great idea to start this topic...
I shall dedicate this thread to the player who made me notice tennis and follow it eversince I saw her play.....

Steffi Graf!
:bounce: :bounce:
 
#4,553 ·
They did not seem to start off on the wrong foot...

Graf gives Hingis seal of approval
Stuart Jones, Tennis Correspondent in Paris
The Times
London, England
February 17, 1995

STEFFI GRAF has seen the future. Although the top seed took her scheduled place in the semi-final of the Open Gaz de France here yesterday, she was sufficiently impressed by her young opponent to predict that Martina Hingis, at 14, promises, in a couple of years, to be just as commanding a figure.

Graf had not seen Hingis at such close quarters before and was startled by the celebrated youngster who was two years and 18 days old when Graf turned professional in 1982. Although Hingis has been in the senior ranks for a mere five months, she has already climbed provisionally to fiftieth in the world.

"I was very surprised," Graf said after beating her by the deceptively wide margin of 6-2, 6-3 in 70 minutes. "I didn't expect her to play that well. Her backhands down the line were unbelievable, and she hit some incredible shots when she was under pressure."

When asked to compare Hingis with Jennifer Capriati, the last prodigy to make a profound impact on women's tennis, Graf pronounced them very similar. "She (Hingis) is on the right track and, with more work on her serve and a couple of years of experience, she will have it all," Graf said.

Graf's superior power was the decisive factor. Although she has shed weight during her prolonged absence, she appeared to be Amazonian when the pair stood on either side of the net for the traditional photographs. The comparatively spindly Hingis looked the child she still is.

Graf opened with an ace, and her eighth gave her the only match point she required. Hingis, whose service tends to open negotiations for a point rather than conclude them, was credited with none. There was little else to choose between them, other than their contrasting strengths.

Graf's booming forehand is a weapon familiar to audiences around the world. Hingis's double-fisted backhand will shortly be as widely recognisable. When she learns to maintain her concentration, she will become an even greater force.

She forged an opening in the first game, but was unable to take advantage of it. When Graf created the same opportunity in the following game, she took it and went on to capture the first set in 35 minutes. When she was broken at the start of the second, she immediately responded and did so again when Hingis broke back to 3-4. She well knows the significance of the big points.

Although Graf conceded that she lacks fitness and match practice as well as the ability to choose the right shot, she has yielded only eight games in reaching the last eight. She remains on course to meet the Mary Pierce, the No2 seed, in the final on Sunday.

Pierce seems yet to appreciate that she has made herself a legitimate target. As the drama queen of the women's game, she has induced a widespread sense of irritation among her peers, and, as the holder of the Australian Open title, she is inspiring opponents to play well above themselves.

Pierce, 20, expressed surprise to be exposed to both developments in her opening match. She was taken aback first by the force of the shots struck and then by the criticism uttered by Renee Stubbs. A qualifier from Australia, Stubbs reeled off 11 of 13 games to stand on the verge of the most distinguished victory of her career late on Wednesday night.

Having led 5-1 in the final set, she claimed that Pierce's gamesmanship, combined with her own failing nerve, contributed to her narrow defeat, 6-4, 3-6, 7-5.

At 5-5 in the third set, Stubbs committed three double faults which effectively cost her a place in the quarter-finals. "She was moving around on my second serves," she said. "For the No3 player in the world to do that is pathetic. She shouldn't need to do it."

Pierce collects official warnings for time-wasting almost as a matter of course. She is not above exceeding the limit allowed for delivering a service when holding match point, as was the case last month in Melbourne. Such theatricality is perceived by opponents as provocative.
 
#4,554 ·
Graf Wins, but Hingis Shows All the Promise
By CHRISTOPHER CLAREY
February 17, 1995
New York Times

PARIS, Feb. 16— First the news that will have an effect on this year's race for the No. 1 ranking: Steffi Graf appears to be in fine health.

Now the news that just might have an effect on the race in years to come: Martina Hingis does indeed appear to be a major talent.

That might not be clear from a cursory glance at the score of tonight's quarterfinal at the Paris indoor open. Graf won by 6-2, 6-3 in little more than one hour. But for anyone who watched Hingis surprise Graf on more than one occasion with a backhand bolt down the line or a clever change of pace, it was clear that Hingis at 14 has the potential to live up to her premature celebrity.

Take it from Graf, who played on the pro tour at 14:

"I think she's definitely on the right track," said Graf, who compared Hingis favorably to Jennifer Capriati at the same age. "I don't think I have to tell Martina much. She knows what she has to do from the baseline. She has to work on her serve, but I think she knows that. She just needs a couple more years of experience, and she'll have it."

Hingis, born in Czechoslovakia and now a Swiss citizen, has posture that would make Emily Post proud and a composure on court that belies her birth date. After winning the junior titles at the French Open and Wimbledon, she turned professional last October and has compiled a record of 9-6 in her first six tournaments on the main circuit, reaching three quarterfinals.

Although she has beaten two top 20 players -- Sabine Hack of Germany and Julie Halard of France -- she cheerfully conceded that playing Graf was an altogether more challenging proposition.

"There is a big difference between players in the top five and the others," she said. "The speed is not the same."

Although the graceful Hingis does indeed seem to float between the lines, her slender frame does not yet allow for stinging ground strokes. While breaking Graf twice and holding break points in two other games, Hingis was regularly overwhelmed by Graf's powerful forehands from the baseline.

Her serve also is a weakness, although against Graf she stayed out of serious trouble by placing it consistently deep.

"As a mother, I wanted her to win," said her mother, Melanie Zogg. "As a coach, I knew she was not able to handle the pace yet."

Graf never appeared terribly uncertain of the outcome herself. In her second match back after a three-month layoff because of back and calf injuries, she again moved consistently well, served a sizable number of aces (eight) and felt comfortable enough to regularly roll her backhand instead of slicing it.

"I am very happy," she said. "It's been a lot of months without tournaments or being able to practice: a frustrating time. It definitely feels good to be back."
 
#4,555 ·
Not the first time and not not the last time a first-timer mentions that Steffi across the net is somehow quite different from Steffi on the screen.

Re: The sponsorship deal. If the women had polled sports marketing executives, players, tournament directors, sports writers and announcers on the subject of a standalone women's tennis tour back in 1973 and went with their analysis, the WTA would have never existed.

Graf turns back Hingis
The Times
Trenton, NJ
Friday, February 17, 1995
Associated Press

PARIS -- Steffi Graf, in the second match of her comeback from injuries, defeated 14-year-old Martina Hingis of Switzerland in a quarterfinal match yesterday at the Paris Open.

Although Graf won 6-2, 6-3 in 61 minutes, Hingis was tougher than the score indicated in her first match against the German star.

''I didn't expect her to play that well,'' Graf said. ''She surprised me with her solid tennis. But I haven't played too many matches and my concentration wasn't 100 percent.''

Hingis had beaten last year's finalist, Julie Halard of France, in the second round. Halard was seeded fifth and ranked No. 18 in the world. But Hingis found Graf much tougher.

''There is a big difference between the top five and the others,'' Hingis said. ''Seeing her on TV is not the same thing like in real life. The speed is a lot more impressive. Steffi played left and right and I couldn't resist that kind of pressure in a whole match.''

Graf controlled the pace, hitting forehand winners at key points. However, Hingis was able to stay in contention by taking advantage of Graf's weak backhand and occasionally firing winners of her own. She broke Graf's service twice and had break opportunities in three other games.

Graf took the first set in 26 minutes. The only time she was in trouble was in the first game when two double faults gave Hingis a break point. But two forehand winners and an ace erased that and gave Graf the game.

Hingis broke serve to go ahead 1-0 in the second set with the help of two consecutive backhand errors by Graf. But Graf broke right back to even it.

Still each game was a struggle. There were several more service breaks, including one by Graf to go ahead 5-3. Serving for the match, Graf took the final two points with her eighth ace and a service winner.

Graf was surprised by a few of Hingis' shots.

''If you put her under a lot of pressure, she played some incredible shots down the line,'' Graf said. ''She is on the right track. She knows what to do on the baseline. She needs a couple more years of experience and she'll have it.''

Because of recurring back and calf injuries, Graf has played only four matches since losing to Arantxa Sanchez Vicario in the U.S. Open in September -- two in the year-ending Virginia Slims tournament in November and two in this tournament.

Graf says she still lacks something.

''I am somebody who likes to be fit when I walk on the court and I have the feeling I haven't been able to work on that fitness the way I usually do,'' she said.

She has lost her No. 1 ranking to Sanchez Vicario but could regain it with a victory in this tournament.

In second-round matches yesterday, third-seeded Jana Novotna of the Czech Republic defeated France's Alexia Dechaume-Belleret 7-5, 6-3; No. 7 Karina Habsudova of Slovakia beat Petra Langrova of the Czech Republic 6-3, 6-2, and sixth-seeded Judith Wiesner of Austria downed Miriam Oremans of the Netherlands 6-4, 7-5.

In tomorrow's semifinals, Graf will face the winner of the Novotna-Habsudova quarterfinal.

In other tournaments:

* MURATTI TIME INDOOR: Defending champion Boris Becker, the No. 1 seed, beat Haitian qualifier Ronald Agenor, 6-4, 6-4, and earned a quarterfinal berth.

Becker's doubles teammate, Guy Forget of France, earned a quarterfinal berth against him by defeating Russian Alexander Volkov, 4-6, 7-6 (7-3), 6-4.

* ST. JUDE INDOOR: Jonathan Stark could be excused for losing his concentration at match point. It was, after all, a familiar face on the other side of the net. Stark was leading 6-3 in the second-set tiebreaker against his former Stanford teammate and doubles partner Jared Palmer when he lost two match points. Stark then clamped down and closed out the 6-4, 7-6 (7-5) victory in Memphis. "I flaked out on my serve in the second set and let him in," Stark said. "Jared came up with a couple of great shots to get two points and get back in. I was able to relax. . . . and this time I came out on top."

In other matches, defending champion and third-seeded Todd Martin downed Richey Reneberg, 6-1, 6-4; Sweden's Thomas Enqvist beat Brett Steven of New Zealand, 6-4, 6-1; and No. 11 Paul Haarhuis of the Netherlands upset No. 6 Jamie Yzaga of Peru, 6-4, 3-6, 6-3.

Stark said he wasn't thrown by playing an old partner. As a team, Palmer and Stark reached the NCAA doubles finals and won the ATP Tour doubles title at Wellington, New Zealand, in 1992. "It's kind of hard, but once you get out there and get to playing, you forget about that," said Stark.

* IGA CLASSIC: Second-seeded Amy Frazier and No. 5 Lisa Raymond struggled, but advanced to the quarterfinals in Oklahoma City. Frazier, who won the event in 1990, beat Yvette Basting of the Netherlands, 4-6, 7-6 (7-5), 6-2. Raymond, a former NCAA champion, beat Dominique Monami of Belgium 7-5, 4-6, 6-2. No. 6 seed Nicole Bradke lost to Audra Keller of Memphis, Tenn. Keller will meet top-seeded Brenda Schultz in today's quarterfinals.

* The fear of endless jokes, bad puns and snickering men, as much as the potential loss of local backers, led the WTA Tour to turn down a $10 million global sponsorship offer by Tampax.

Navratilova ultimately and somewhat reluctantly voted against the deal Wednesday despite the WTA's need to replace the sponsorship it ended under pressure last year with the Philip Morris Corporation, makers of Virginia Slims cigarettes.

''Initially, my reaction was that it would be good to have the money,'' WTA president Martina Navratilova said Thursday. ''But almost immediately I realized that the sport had the potential to be a laughingstock and just couldn't afford to do it.''

Navratilova was in Atlanta for a WTA FanFare at the time the three-year offer was made last week, and she asked some of the business people attending for their reactions to a ''Tampax Tour.''

''One of the people who made the most impact on me,'' she said, ''was someone who said, 'You've played all your career wanting to be known as a great tennis player, and you're known as a great woman tennis player. Think of what it would do to all the players in the future to be known just as part of the Tampax Tour. It would never get tennis beyond women's tennis.' ''

The WTA polled more than 100 sports marketing executives, players, tournament directors, sports writers and announcers, and the reaction ran 75 percent against going with Tampax.

The WTA Tour said it has retained International Management Group to replace Advantage as the tour's agent for marketing and television rights. If IMG fails to get an acceptable sponsor, it reportedly will be obligated to help subsidize the tour through 1999.
 
#4,556 ·
I wonder if the "informed and respected source within the Women's Tennis Association" was one of the Sorority Sisters hoping Steffi would pack it in. Because Steffi herself had been making it clear that these rumors had no validity ("Whoever suggests that [early retirement], is talking stupid rot" and "It's not a subject"). Not only would she recapture her "conviction," she would prove that she didn't even need "conviction." Hilariously, it would be Hingis making the most of "a transitional period." See you in Paris again in four years, Martina!


Injury likely to shorten Graf's glittering career
The Times
London, England
Saturday, February 18, 1995
Stuart Jones

Stuart Jones, tennis correspondent, says that fitness worries could force the best woman player into early retirement

Even if Steffi Graf regains her status as the world's leading player by capturing the Open Gaz de France title tomorrow, as is expected, her supremacy in women's tennis has perhaps already drawn to a close. Her career could be over even sooner than had been thought.

An informed and respected source within the Women's Tennis Association Tour disclosed in Paris that the back injury sustained by Graf last year may lead to her premature retirement. Returning from an absence of five months, apart from one brief outing in New York, Graf, at the age of 25, has effectively embarked on a last hurrah.

Bombarded by questions about her physical condition this week, Graf has insisted that she is feeling no adverse effects from the bone spur in her lower spine. No, she has not needed to adjust her game; yes, she can swing freely; no, she cannot sense any restriction of movement.

Nevertheless, in declining to undergo an operation that would put her out for at least another six months and carries no guarantee of a complete cure, Graf runs the risk of being afflicted by referred complaints. Her body would inevitably attempt to compensate for the original problem.

A pulled calf muscle, which forced her to miss the Australian Open last month, may not have been the consequence merely of over-zealous training. "My deepest concern," she said, after admitting to a drop in her level of concentration and a lack of match practice, "is my health and fitness."

For as long as she manages to maintain her customary standard, Graf will remain a force. Given her psychological reservations about her well-being, though, she can scarcely expect to recapture the conviction that she demonstrated little more than a year ago when, for the second time in her life, she was the holder of the four grand slam titles.

She has since lost all of them the French and US Open to Arantxa Sanchez Vicario, Wimbledon to Conchita Martinez, and the Australian Open to Mary Pierce. Suffering from what was initially reported to be a stress fracture in her back, she reached only one final.

So clear was Graf's lead in the convoluted ranking system that she was deposed only a fortnight ago by Sanchez Vicario. As the runner-up in Melbourne, there can be little dispute that the pugnacious Spaniard earned the honour, however briefly she retains it, during Graf's enforced hibernation.

Although Graf professes to be pursuing "personal satisfaction" rather than accumulating trophies, the grand slam championships have been, are, and always will be used as virtually the only gauge by which players are rated. With 15, the German already has her place as the fifth most successful woman in history. At present, there is only one competitor who seems remotely capable of surpassing her feats and then, far in the future.

She is, as Graf herself intimated after she had beaten her in Paris on Thursday night, Martina Hingis. Once the young Swiss player has developed her slender frame, she promises to be as dominant in the senior ranks as she was in the juniors, where she captured the French Open title twice and also Wimbledon.

Hingis, 14, joined the profession, coincidentally, as Graf was temporarily leaving it in October. They are unlikely to grace it for long together, sadly, and the other leading contenders would be advised to make the most of a transitional period of perhaps a couple of years.
 
#4,557 ·
"Hello, Jana. I understand you missed me last year on the autumn indoor circuit." -- "Well, maybe not that much." -- "Ah, but I missed you." -- "Oh, crap."

Graf and Pierce shoot it out
The Sunday Times
London, England
Sunday, February 19, 1995
Richard Evans

MARY PIERCE insisted she was going to sleep well. With all her vast experience, one can only presume Steffi Graf will have done the same. But the extraordinary circumstances surrounding today's final of the Paris Indoor Open at the Stade Coubertin would be more than sufficient to induce nightmares, even for the most confident of competitors, and Graf, for all her success, has never been that.

Two players who seem poised on the brink of a substantial rivalry got rid of yesterday's business in workmanlike style. Graf beat Jana Novotna in straight sets,

6-3 6-2, while Pierce defeated the impressive Croatian teenager, Iva Majoli, 6-3 6-4.

But both players will carry psychological pressures on court with them today. Graf is playing her first tournament of the year, having appeared only once since losing in the final of the US Open last September. That was in the Virginia Slims championships, where she lost in the second round 6-4 6-4 to Pierce.

But the German's 1994 had veered off course long before. It had never been the same after Pierce inflicted one of the most astonishing defeats Graf had ever suffered, a 6-2 6-2 thrashing in the semi-final of the French Open. Graf gained some small measure of revenge at the Canadian Open later in the summer, but her most recent tournament win came in San Diego in July.

Pierce's is rather more recent than that. She won the Australian Open last month without the loss of a set, which not only established her as a true power in the women's game, but also made her the proud owner of the last Grand Slam title left in Steffi's cupboard. Proud Mary. But will pride and all this history be enough for her today?

"I have nothing to prove," she said just a mite defensively when asked about the impending confrontation. "I know I have to serve at my best and attack on my returns but I'm fit and I'll sleep well."

What Pierce does have to prove, of course, is whether she can play her best tennis after a week that has brought home to her very forcefully the kind of expectation which now follows her.

France has been yearning for a new tennis star. The fact that Pierce is Canadian-born with an aggressive American father has not prevented the French from drawing her to their collective bosom. A French mother and a willingness to attain fluency in the language proved quite enough for Pierce to send television ratings and tennis-magazine sales soaring.

Gaz de France, which has been pouring money into French sport, with a particular emphasis on women's tennis, has signed Pierce to a personal contract in a deal brokered by the former French No1, Pierre Barthes. The company also sponsor the French Federation Cup team and it would be nice if British Gas would follow suit on behalf of British tennis. Perhaps some of their executives could chip in if the budget fell short.

Pierce has looked capable of handling the pressure this week, especially after her amazing but splendidly determined escape from 5-1 down in the final set against the unheralded Australian Renee Stubbs.

Yesterday Pierce was required to play her most authoritative tennis against a 17-year-old from Zagreb who trains at the same camp in Florida as Pierce. Majoli has climbed up the WTA rankings with amazing speed. She already stands at No12, and, with the power she generates off the ground, it was not hard to understand why. Pierce, however, hits everything harder, and the winning habit she is developing was clearly evident when she fell behind 15-30 when serving for the match.

Two big breaths settled the nerves and then she stretched her long legs to pursue hard-driven returns in a demanding rally before thumping a clean forehand winner down the line. Emphatically, it put paid to any thoughts the 17-year-old had of breaking back.

Strange as it may seem considering Novotna is ranked No5 in the world, there are a few players Graf would rather see facing her in a semi-final than this 26-year-old Czech, who cried so memorably on the Duchess of Kent's shoulder after throwing away the 1993 Wimbledon final. Since then they have met four times and Novotna has yet to win a set.

Yesterday she had a chance and she knew it. Graf's lack of match practice could have made her vulnerable to a challenge of real quality, and Novotna adopted precisely the right tactics in charging in behind her serve to volley with power and conviction. But her backhand could not sustain a serious examination and when the umpire overruled in Graf's favour in the middle of a protracted duel for the seventh game of the first set, all the old insecurities resurfaced. Although she hung on to break back in that game, Novotna was still fretting about it afterwards.

"It always seems to happen when I'm playing Steffi," she said. No more tears this time, just a realisation Graf is too good for her. Will Pierce be forced to admit as much today? It should be fascinating.
 
#4,558 ·
Graf maintains grip on Novotna
The Independent on Sunday
London, England
Sunday, February 19, 1995

STEFFI GRAF, returning from a back problem which she expects to carry permanently, cruised to her most impressive victory since September, a 6-3 6-2 semi-final win over Jana Novotna in the Paris Open yesterday.

Graf, of Germany, lost her No 1 ranking to Arantxa Sanchez Vicario, of Spain, while missing action for three months through back injuries. She could regain the top position with a victory in this tournament. If she succeeds, it would be her first title since winning an event in San Diego last July.

Against Novotna, ranked fifth in the world, Graf was not as sharp as she was in beating the 14-year-old Martina Hingis, of Switzerland, on Thursday.

In the eighth game, two double faults by Novotna helped Graf make a key break. Still it was not that easy for Graf. She wasted two set points with consecutive forehand errors before finally ending the 48-minute first set with a backhand volley and a good service that Novotna netted.

In the second set, the players went on serve until the fifth game when Novotna gave Graf a break point with a forehand wide. Graf took advantage of it when Novotna hit a half-volley into the net to make it 3-2 for Graf.

Graf had two aces in the next game to increase her lead to 4-2. Novotna dropped her service again in the next game with Graf taking advantage of a second serve to rip a return winner at break point.

Graf served out the next game at love, concluding the match in 84 minutes with a service winner.

Graf now has a 22-3 record over Novotna. Their most memorable contest came in the 1993 Wimbledon final when Graf was trailing 4-1 in the third set and came back to take the title.

Because of recurring back and calf injuries, Graf has played just five matches since losing to Sanchez Vicario in the United States Open in September - two in the year- ending Virginia Slims tournament in November and three so far in this tournament.
 
#4,559 ·
Luke Skywalker: I'm not afraid.

Yoda: You will be. You... will... be.

----Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back, 1980, Lucasfilm/Twentieth Century Fox

Graf, Pierce reach the Paris Open final
The Times
Trenton, NJ
Sunday, February 19, 1995
Associated Press

PARIS -- Playing like the Steffi Graf of old, the former world No. 1 displayed her best tennis since September with a 6-3, 6-2 semifinal victory yesterday over Jana Novotna in the Paris Open.

Graf advanced to a potentially dramatic title match against Australian Open champion Mary Pierce, who beat Iva Majoli of Croatia 6-3, 6-4 in the other semifinal.

Pierce, now one notch below Graf in the rankings at No. 3, defeated the German star in the Virginia Slims championships in November.

That was Graf's last tournament appearance before this week, when back troubles eased enough for her to start a comeback. Graf holds a 3-2 career edge over Pierce.

''I'm glad Steffi is back and playing well,'' Pierce said. ''But Steffi knows I am not afraid of her.''

Graf lost her No. 1 ranking to Arantxa Sanchez Vicario while out of action for three months. She could gain it back with a title here, which would be her first championship since an event at San Diego last July.

''I'm extremely happy to make the final. It makes up for the bad times,'' Graf said. ''I still need a couple more weeks of good training.

''It was a big step for me,'' she said. ''It was a difficult match for the first time in quite some time. I think I handled it very well.''

Graf now owns a 22-3 record over Novotna. Their most memorable contest came in the 1993 Wimbledon final when Graf was trailing 1-4 in the third set and came back to take the title.

Because of recurring back and calf injuries, Graf has played just five matches since losing to Sanchez Vicario in the U.S. Open in September -- two in the Virginia Slims tournament in November and three this week.

Pierce's strong groundstrokes helped her gain her third consecutive victory over Majoli, who committed unforced errors at key points.

Sampras beaten

MEMPHIS, Tenn. -- Two match points away from victory, Pete Sampras tightened up.

The world's No. 1 player won his first set 6-4 against Todd Martin in the St. Jude Indoor tournament semifinals. But Sampras missed two match points as Martin pulled out a 4-6, 7-6 (8-6), 6-3 victory.

Martin will play either Paul Haarhuis or Jonathan Stark, who played last night, in today's finals.

''It's like a bad dream,'' said Sampras, who said he couldn't remember the last time he lost when he had match point. That came last May when he didn't convert a match point before losing to Michael Stich in Germany.

Sampras served for the match at 5-4 only to be broken by Martin, his friend and practice partner who's ranked No. 10. The set went to a tiebreaker, and Sampras jumped ahead 5-1.

No matter what he tried, Sampras couldn't put Martin away. Martin pulled out the tiebreaker 8-6 for the second set victory and broke Sampras in the first game of the final set before winning.

''Basically the pressure was on me, and at that point he had nothing to lose,'' Sampras said. ''He missed quite a bit, but he made the right points.''

Sampras took two weeks off after losing to Andre Agassi in the Australian Open finals. The tour's leader in tiebreaks last year with a 29-8 record, Sampras is 0-6 in tiebreakers this year.

Martin, the defending champion who now is 4-2 against Sampras, sympathized with him.

''Pete's one of my better friends on the tour. It's never easy to beat your friends, and it's an enjoyable accomplishment as far as tennis goes. ... I feel not sorry, but I understand how Pete feels, and it's not a position I want to be in,'' Martin said.

Sampras heads to Philadelphia for the U.S. Indoor, where Agassi will be the second seed.

Becker struggles

MILAN, Italy -- Top-seeded Boris Becker struggled to a 7-6 (7-3), 6-7 (7-3), 6-2 victory over Czech Petr Korda to reach his fifth final at the Milan Indoor tennis tournament.

The German player needed 2 hours, 38 minutes and a lot of determination to overcome his sixth-seeded opponent in a replay of the 1994 Milan final.

The victory in the semifinal at Assago Forum improved Becker's series lead over Korda to 5-0 and gave the German a Milan record of 27-2, the most victories by any player in this event.

In today's final of the Muratti Time Indoor, awarding a top prize of $128,000, the No. 1 seed will take on young Russian talent Yevgeny Kafelnikov, who won a battle of serves against Goran Ivanisevic in the other semifinal.

Kafelnikov, the No. 5 seed, downed the second-seeded Croatian 7-5, 6-7 (7- 4) 6-4 in 1 hour, 41 minutes.

The Russian, who turned 21 on Saturday, made himself a birthday gift by reaching his first ATP final since last August.

He has never played Becker before, but the German already has great respect for him.

''You can play tennis against Kafelnikov. He's a good, tough player. I can hope to express my qualities against him,'' Becker said.

He added that he was close to his peak form.

''I am playing very well. I have a 50 percent chance to win another title tomorrow,'' Becker said.

Ivanisevic, a wild-card entry in Milan, served 32 aces in Saturday's semifinal, a record for the tournament. However, his big serve was overwhelmed by Kafelnikov in exchanges from the baseline.

The Russian, who broke Ivanisevic in the 12th game of the first set and in the seventh of the third set, succumbed in the second set without losing his serve. Kafelnikov had 12 aces and 10 double faults.

Becker, who won his 43rd career tournament at Marseille last Sunday following a bitter first-round elimination in the Australian Open, had his toughest match in this tournament -- and lost his first set in four rounds -- against the unpredictable Czech player.

Korda, playing his second consecutive semifinal in the ATP tour this year, fought back from a 2-5 deficit in the second set to force Becker to a tense third set.

Korda kept Becker under pressure with backhand passing shots and angled forehands throughout the match.

The Czech lost the first-set tiebreaker 7-3 as he double faulted twice while Becker served two aces.

Broken by Becker in the fourth game of the second set and on the verge of defeat, Korda played a series of beautiful shots, broke back in the ninth game and sailed to a 7-3 win in the tiebreaker.

The defending champion, again taking advantage of two double faults by Korda and playing consistent tennis from the baseline, broke in the fifth and seventh games to earn a hard-fought victory.

Korda made seven double faults and had nine aces in the match while Becker served 18 aces.

''His serve made the difference. I could have won this match if he only did not serve so good,'' Korda said.

In last year's final Becker also needed three sets, but fewer games, to defeat Korda 6-2, 3-6, 6-3.

The 27-year-old German ace, who won the Milan title in 1987, 1989, 1993 and 1994, is also in the running for the doubles title in a team with Frenchman Guy Forget.

In the doubles semifinal Becker and Forget defeated Jan Hendrik Davids of the Netherlands and Czech Cyril Suk 6-7 (7-5), 7-6 (7-5), 7-6 (7-5).
 
#4,560 ·
Graf Defeats Pierce in Paris Open
Christopher Clarey
International Herald Tribune
February 20, 1995

The party line in professional tennis is that if you stay away too long, the game begins to pass you by. Take an extended break and you forget how to handle the big points with aplomb. Take a break and you lose the precious burnish on your shots that allows you to fall back on instinct under pressure.

On Sunday, Steffi Graf beat Mary Pierce, 6-2, 6-2, in the final of the Paris Open. So much for the party line.

Coming into the tournament, Graf had played precisely two matches in the past five months: both in New York at the Virginia Slims Championships in November. A chronic back problem had kept her out of action for most of last fall; a strained right calf muscle had forced her to pull out of the Australian Open in January.

But though she arrived in Paris feeling edgy and uncertain, her fears quickly melted away in the heat generated by a string of aces, sharply chipped backhands and lunging forehand winners. She ended up winning the tournament without missing a beat, dropping a set or, she insists, feeling a twinge of pain.

And on Sunday, she saved her best for last, dominating Pierce, the player who has shone most brilliantly in Graf's absence.

"It's a bit much to say that I didn't dream of this kind of week, but it's sort of true," said Graf, who, at least temporarily, regained the No. 1 ranking she had relinquished to Arantxa Sanchez Vicario by skipping the Australian. "I came here on Monday and Tuesday still not sure whether I would be able to play the tournament. To come out and beat two top five players and play great tennis, I didn't expect something like this could happen."

Her coach, Heinz Gunthardt, sounded even more pleasantly surprised.

"For me, this was an amazing display," he said. "If somebody else went through what she did, they would come out here and not win a match. It's not because of what we did the last two weeks. It's certainly not because of what we did the last six months. It's because of all the work she's put in the last 10 years and talent, raw talent."

Pierce, the 20-year-old who plays for France but remains more at ease speaking very American English, has plenty of raw talent herself. And last summer when Graf was ostensibly healthy, Pierce was the dominant one, stunning the German star in the semifinals of the French Open by the familiar score of 6-2, 6-2. She beat Graf again in the quarterfinals of the Virginia Slims, and when she swept through the field last month to win her first Grand Slam title at the Australian Open, a changing of the guard appeared imminent.

But if Graf can continue to play like she did Sunday (a big "if" in light of the bone spur on her sacroiliac), Pierce may have to bide her time at No. 3 or No. 2 a while longer.

"Steffi was Steffi today, and I was a step too slow," Pierce said. "You have to be 100 percent to beat her, and I wasn't quite 100 percent."

Remarkably sharp from the start, Graf kept Pierce constantly off balance, even in the second set when the exchanges were considerably less one-sided. She served superbly, finishing with 10 aces and nearly that many service winners. From the baseline, she was brutally efficient and nowhere near as error-prone as she had been in Paris last summer.

"I approached this match in a totally different spirit," Graf said. "At the French Open, I felt my tennis was off. I was struggling with my game and my head on court. Today, I was looking forward to the match, I was there all the time, and I think I believed in myself more."

A shy and private person whose gifts led her into one of the most glaringly public of professions, Graf has long been her own toughest critic. But in the months to come, her belief in herself probably will depend less on her shotmaking and more on her health.

"Stretching before practice; stretching after practice; ice afterward," she said. "This is new for me, and that's the way it will be for as long as I play."
 
#4,561 ·
Win puts Graf back at the top
Irish Times
Dublin, Ireland
February 20, 1995

STEFFI GRAF needed only 67 minutes to crush Australian Open winner Mary Pierce 6-2 6-2 in the Paris Open final yesterday to regain her position as the world's number one female player.

The 25-year-old German, showing no ill-effects from her three-month break from the game, was her devastating self as she captured the 87th title of her career. The win ensures that Arantxa Sanchez Vicario's two-week reign at the top ends today.

"I can't believe it right now. I did not expect to come back here and win the tournament right away, especially as Mary has been playing very well," Graf she said.

But for Graf, who has been plagued by injuries for the past six months, the most important thing was proving to herself whether she had fully recovered.

"It was very difficult at times in the past few months not knowing what to expect," she said.

She certainly did not expect to beat the in-form Pierce so comprehensively, having lost in their last two [sic] meetings at the French Open last June and at the Virginia Slims finals in November.

But Parisian fans' hopes of seeing world number three Pierce avenge her last defeat in a final in the French capital - to Sanchez Vicario at Roland Garros last year - did not last long.

It was sweet revenge for Graf, who lost to the Canadian-born French player at both Roland Garros and at the Virginia Slims Championship in 1994.

The five-time Wimbledon champion showed no discomfort from the bone spur back injury she has admitted she will be carrying for the rest of her career.

Graf never allowed Pierce to settle into her routine.

After 15 minutes, the French woman could not withstand Graf's aggressive groundstrokes and was trailing 3-0 despite some fine volleys, and she was unable to claw back the initiative.

The early games of the second set were more of a contest, especially in a marathon third game in which Pierce saved four break points to eventually hold serve.

But two games later she was broken again and Graf was able to reel off the last four games in a row to claim the title.

Graf, who served well throughout to hit 10 aces, offered few ****** in her defences and Pierce did not have a single break point to exploit in the 30-minute first set.

And although Pierce occasionally stranded her opponent with a powerful crosscourt drive or a cleverly flighted drop-shot, she was never able to sustain any real pressure.

Graf had previously reigned as the world's top-ranked player for 277 weeks until she lost the ranking to Sanchez on 6 February.

Graf who didn't lose a set and who dropped only 13 games in reaching the final after beating Russian Elena Marakova, Switzerland's Martina Hingis and world No. 5 Jana Novotna of the Czech Republic had only one anxious moment. It came in the third game of the second set when Pierce earned her only break point.

But Graf immediately stubbed out the flicker of hope with a scorching forehand.

Pierce paid a warm tribute to Graf after the match.

"What can I say? To come back to a strong tournament like this and win is clearly a marvellous achievement."

TOP seed Brenda Schultz made it third time lucky when she easily beat Elena Likhovtseva 6-1, 6-2 to win the Women's Tennis Association tour tournament in Oklahoma City. Schultz relied on her big serve, serving six aces to bring her total for the week to 31.

AMERICAN Todd Martin started slowly, then overpowered Paul Haarhuis with his serve 7-6 (7-2), 6-4 to win back-to-back St Jude Indoor tournaments in Memphis.

YOUNG Russian Yevgeny Kafelnikov beat Boris Becker 7-5, 5-7, 7-6 (8-6) to win the final of the men's indoor tennis tournament in Milan. Said Kafelnikov, who has moved from outside the top 100 to his current No. 10 ranking inside a year: "I know that it will be a lot harder for me now that I am in the top 10. Players will be out to beat me and I'll have to hang on. "I am feeling the pressure twice as much as when I was 30th or 50th."
 
#4,562 ·
"Hello, Mary, I understand you missed me at the Australian Open." -- "Well, maybe not that much." -- "Ah, but I missed you." -- "Oh, crap."

Graf back in old routine
The Independent
London, England
Monday, February 20, 1995
Alan Page reports from Paris

Steffi Graf's return to the circuit at last week's Paris Open was never going to be a simple resumption of duties. And come to that, why should the German want to pick up where she left off, when her last match was a defeat at the hands of Mary Pierce at the Virginia Slims Championships, and her previous tournament saw her finish a half-crippled loser in the US Open final against Arantxa Sanchez Vicario?

Given her difficult circumstances, the Paris Open, which she won yesterday against Pierce, looked closer to an attempted comeback.

During Graf's absence, things have been happening behind the German's injured back: Martina Hingis, a 14-year-old Swiss with sweet-spot timing was hailed as tennis's latest prodigy, Pierce won her first major title at the Australian Open, and Sanchez Vicario took over the world No 1 ranking.

In one fell swoop, and after arriving in Paris last Tuesday still questioning her readiness for tournament play, Graf delivered her own categorical answers and bludgeoning rejoinders to most of the doubts and every challenger in sight.

She dismissed Hingis in the quarter-finals, and lost a total of only 17 games all week. In yesterday's final, she looked her old fleet-footed, beautifully balanced athletic self in beating Pierce 6-2, 6-2 in 68 minutes to capture the 87th title of her career. She has won many more valuable and prestigious victories in her time, but few more crucial than this one, and has now supplanted Sanchez Vicario at No 1 after the Spaniard had held her position of theoretical superiority for precisely two weeks.

Not so much a Spanish reign as a Barcelona blip.

Throughout yesterday's final, Graf's face retained her usual solemn expression of extreme concentration, but her tennis was joyously positive. She got off to a flying start at three love and was never caught. Her service - she rattled down 10 aces - was never threatened, and Pierce contrived only one break point in two sets.

The Frenchwoman rightly refused to get into a straight baseline brawl, teasing Graf's backhand with short angled high bounces, mixing things up as much as Graf's driving attacks allowed. Unfortunately, Pierce had neither the speed nor the range of shot to pose any consistent question.

After Graf opened up the second set by whacking in three aces in one game, the Frenchwoman went into mental purdah on the changeover, towel wrapped around her fevered brow. When she surfaced she still had not come up with any solutions. Graf was swifter, more precise in her placements, and carried the heavier serve. It was all too much for Pierce, but then it has been too much for most players over the past 10 years.

"I've won and I've beaten two top five players and played some great tennis," Graf said. "I really didn't expect that to happen. I enjoyed things so much this week. This is what I've been waiting for and training for for months."

For such a hyperactive person and eager competitor, time must have weighed on her. Her days were certainly long. Between physical conditioning, medical treatment and work-outs, Graf was on the go for 12 hours a day. Now she is back into the tournament - and victory - routine, her professional duties only take up a normal seven or eight hours. "This," she said "is almost like a holiday." Her rivals will be feeling exactly the opposite.

Graf put on almost half a stone during her absence, and on her doctor's advice now takes care, for the first time in her career, about diet. But her tennis appetite is back. And the only question remaining is how long her chronically injured back will now resist.

"Today Steffi was Steffi," the beaten Pierce said after the final. She was right. Tomorrow, of course, is another day.

* Yevgeny Kafelnikov, of Russia, beat the German, Boris Becker, 7-5, 5-7, 7-6 to win the Muratti Time Indoor tournament in Milan yesterday.
 
#4,563 ·
Tennis: Graf is back at her best
David Irvine
The Guardian
Manchester, England
February 20, 1995

MARY PIERCE, who took full advantage of Steffi Graf's absence through injury to claim her Australian Open title last month, was no match for the 25-year-old German in the final of the Paris Indoor Championship yesterday.

Graf, competing in her first tournament since November, beat the Frenchwoman 6-2, 6-2 -- exactly the score by which Pierce had defeated her at the French Open in June last year -- to take her 87th title and regain the world No. 1 ranking from Arantxa Sanchez Vicario.

It was a decisive end to a triumphant comeback week. Graf, who had played only two matches since losing to Sanchez Vicario in the final of the US Open in New York last September, often looked close to her best.

Her serve (10 aces yesterday) looked more effective than it was before her enforced lay-off with first a recurrence of an old back injury and then a pulled calf muscle.

"I knew it wasn't going to be too easy coming back," said a delighted Graf, "but this is what I've been working so hard for. I'm very pleased."

Pierce, who had outplayed Sanchez Vicario in the Australian final, had difficulty coping with Graf's powerful serve and fiercely hit forehand. She forced only one break point in the match, at 1-1 in the second set, but the No. 1 seed responded with three ferocious winners.

At 2-3 Pierce lost her serve from 30-0 with four errors and her confidence was shattered. A brilliant and daring backhand drop shot earned Graf match point and another error from Pierce gave the German her first tournament win since August.

* Pete Sampras, the world No. 1, suffered a surprise semi-final defeat against Todd Martin in the Kroger/St Jude International tournament in Memphis. Martin, the defending champion, saved two match points before claiming a 4-6, 7-6, 6-4 victory over the top seed.

* The Russian Yevgeny Kafelnikov stunned the top seed Boris Becker with a thrilling win in a third-set tie-breaker in the final of the Milan Indoor tournament. He took 2hr 15min to defeat Becker 7-5, 5-7, 7-6 in the closest of 18 finals of the tournament.
 
#4,564 ·
GRAF IS AGAIN NO. 1 AFTER DEFEATING PIERCE
Press-Telegram
Long Beach, CA
Monday, February 20, 1995
Associated Press

PARIS -- Steffi Graf erased a lot of doubts -- her own and others -- by routing Mary Pierce, 6-2, 6-2, in 67 minutes Sunday at the Paris Open to regain the No. 1 world ranking.

"I came here on Monday and I still felt I wasn't sure if I was ready to play in a tournament," Graf said. "Then to come here and beat two top five players. I just didn't expect anything like that could happen."

Graf had been sidelined for three months with back and leg injuries, losing her No. 1 women's ranking to Aranxta Sanchez Vicario while struggling to get back in condition.

"I didn't know how I would do," Graf said. "I was just waiting for something to come."

That something was four solid victories in five days, including wins over fifth-ranked Jana Novotna in the semifinals and then over third-ranked Pierce. As a result, Graf will move past Sanchez Vicario when the new rankings come out today.

Sanchez Vicario took over the top ranking Feb. 6 after Graf missed the Australian Open. Pierce beat Sanchez Vicario for the Australian title, but was no match for Graf on Sunday.

Often depicted as too businesslike, Graf was grinning like a first-time winner.

"I'm extremely happy," she said. " . . . The way I played in the tournament . . . the fact I was able to play . . . the way it all came together. "

Graf played aggressively and served well, pounding 10 aces as well as numerous hard services that set up easy forehand winners.

"Steffi was Steffi," Pierce said. "She served extremely well, which was an important part of the match. I was a little tired and a little bit sore from all the matches I played this week. I'm not giving that as an excuse. Steffi played well, but I was a step too slow today."

Pierce dropped her serve in the second game. Her two errors and two forehand winners by Graf put Graf up 2-0. Graf, 25, squandered two set points in Game 8 but took advantage of two more Pierce errors to win the first set in 30 minutes.

Graf continued to serve well, getting three aces in the first game of the second set.

Pierce, raised in Florida but playing for France, gained her first break point in the third game. But Graf held with two crunching forehands and her ninth ace. Pierce held the next game but Graf rolled through the next four without much trouble.

Graf lost to Pierce twice last year, in the French Open semifinals and in the Virginia Slims quarterfinals in November, her last match before this week.

Graf said yesterday was a big difference from her 6-2, 6-2 loss to Pierce at the French Open last June.

"I felt myself in a totally different spirit then," Graf said. "My tennis was way off. I was struggling with my game. I believe more in myself today than I did then."

Now Graf will go back to No. 1, making it 278 weeks she has held the top ranking. Martina Navratilova, who won this tournament the past two years, has the record of 331 weeks.

Sanchez Vicario will have a chance to regain the top ranking at the Indian Wells, Calif., tournament in March. Graf plays in Delray Beach the following week.

Kafelnikov tops Becker -- Russian Yevgeny Kafelnikov upset top-seeded Boris Becker 7-5, 5-7, 7-6 (8-6) to win the Muratti Time indoor tournament and earn the biggest paycheck of his career, $128,000.

Kafelnikov took two hours, 15 minutes, to beat Becker at the Milan Forum, in the closest and hardest-fought final in the tournament's 18 years.

Kafelnikov, the No. 5 seed who is ranked 10th in the world, withstood the pressure of the decisive tie-breaker against his more experienced opponent before a crowd supporting Becker.

Kafelnikov earned the decisive two points with a smash and on a doublefault by Becker, who missed a record fifth title at Milan and a second consecutive tournament victory this season.

"He was better than I ... he played a great match," said Becker, ranked third in the world.

Kafelnikov said Becker was his long-time idol "and playing him in a final of a major tournament was a dream come true.

"He made me a special birthday gift losing this final to me," said Kafelnikov, who turned 21 Saturday.

Martin repeats at St. Jude -- Todd Martin started slowly, then overpowered Paul Haarhuis with his serve 7-6 (7-2), 6-4 in defending the St. Jude indoor tournament title in Memphis, Tenn.

He struggled early, as Haarhuis, ranked 48th in the world, broke him in going up 2-1 in the first set. But Haarhuis failed to convert on two break points in game five.

Martin held, broke Haarhuis and held serve again for a 4-3 lead. Haarhuis forced the tiebreaker, but his serve failed him as he missed on three first serves and double-faulted in giving Martin a 5-2 lead.

In the second set, Martin served 10 of his 16 aces and broke Haarhuis in the third game for a 2-1 lead with a passing shot down the right line. He kept Haarhuis off balance by moving him around, forcing him to hit shots on the run.

Martin became the first player to successfully defend his championship at The Racquet Club since Jimmy Connors in 1983-1984 and earned $117,000.

Haarhuis, who turned 29 Sunday, was looking for his second career tour title after winning for the first time at Jakarta last month.

The victory will move Martin from 16th to 11th in the rankings. He reached a career high at No. 5 last summer.

Schultz victorious -- Brenda Schultz, using a strong serve to keep her opponent off balance, routed Elena Likhovtseva 6-1, 6-2 to win the IGA Tennis Classic.

Schultz, the top seed from the Netherlands, got off to a quick start, winning the first five games. She never ran into trouble until she tried to close the match, needing four attempts at match point to gain the victory over the No. 9 seed from Russia.

In doubles, Nicole Arendt and Laura Golarsa defeated Schultz and Katrina Adams 6-4, 6-3 in the title match.
 
#4,567 ·
Finishing up the details on the Tampax sponsorship rejection since it does elucidate the simmering feud between Steffi and the Sorority Sisters. This was the second time Steffi's "people" produced a perfectly viable sponsor in lieu of the tobacco company, and the second time Aunt Martina, Aunt Chrissie, Aunt Billie Jean, and Uncle Mark found some reason to decline it. It ceased to be about "leadership" a long time ago.

WTA Tour looks to protect good name in rejecting deal
The Dallas Morning News
Tuesday, February 21, 1995
Darryl Richards, Staff Writer of The Dallas Morning News

The WTA Tour and Andre Agassi can agree on this: Image is everything.

The WTA Tour, without a title sponsor for more than a year now, admitted it was concerned about its image when it turned down a three-year, $10 million title sponsorship offer from the makers of Tampax tampons.

Tambrands put out a proposal that on the surface was hard to turn down. The company was willing to pay title sponsor fees but was going to be behind the scenes. The company did not require its name to be part of the WTA Tour title.

It also proposed to give the tour a non-refundable $3 million rights fee for the first year. If the tour received a negative reaction from sponsors and the general public, the agreement would have ended but the WTA Tour could have kept the money.

Anne Person Worcester, the WTA Tour's executive director, and WTA players association president, Martina Navratilova, said they appreciated and contemplated the offer. However, they both feared local tournament sponsors would balk at backing a tour sponsored by the manufacturer of a feminine hygiene product.

Players also talked about the crude jokes that were sure to follow the tour from its association with a tampon manufacturer.

Ironically, the WTA Tour was previously associated with a company that manufactured tobacco products.

The search for a title sponsor is as much a fight between the management companies that play a huge part in professional tennis. The WTA Tour asked Advantage International help it find a title sponsor. Advantage representatives said the tour's current state made selling women's tennis more difficult.

Deals with two companies, Diet Coke and Diners Club, reportedly have fallen through.

Monica Seles and Jennifer Capriati, two of the game's biggest stars have played rarely if at all in the last 12 months. Seles, at one time the world's No. 1 player, hasn't played since being stabbed nearly two years ago. Capriati recently returned from a 1994 that included a drug arrest.

"Women's tennis had the chance to do something cutting edge, to lead instead of follow," said Harlan Stone, executive vice president of Advantage International. "Instead, they've opted for the path of least resistance."

Thursday, IMG took over as the tour's marketing agent through 1999, with the agreement it would help subsidize the tour if a sponsor is not found. IMG is trying to get a television and marketing package for the tour.

If IMG ultimately subsidizes the women's tour, it would be a strange partnership. A takeover attempt of the WTA Tour involving several of IMG's clients was quelled shortly after the WTA Tour made some progress in solving its internal problems.


Briefly . . .

The USTA begins construction of a new tennis stadium at the USTA Tennis Center in Queens, N.Y. The $227 million project will expand the U.S. Open's prime site to more than twice its current size. . . . Former Virginia governor Douglas Wilder is leading an effort to raise $400,000 for a monument for Arthur Ashe. Wilder wants a 24-foot bronze statue placed on Monument Avenue alongside those of Virginia's Confederate heroes Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson and J.E.B. Stuart. . . . Steffi Graf regained her No. 1 status last week and leads No. 2 Arantxa Sanchez Vicario by 10 computer points. . . . When Pete Sampras lost a second-set tiebreaker to Todd Martin in the semifinals of the Kroger/St. Jude International, it was the sixth consecutive tiebreaker loss for Sampras this season. Sampras led men's tennis with a 29-8 tiebreaker record last year. . . . The United States will play Italy in the second round of Davis Cup in Palermo, Italy, March 31-April 2. The surface will be an outdoor clay court.
 
#4,568 ·
Allan Malamud, Los Angeles Times, February 21, 1995: "Bonehead-of-the-month award goes to women's tennis officials who turned down a $10-million offer from Tampax to sponsor the tour. After years of sponsorship by a cigarette company, they were worried about a negative image that the feminine hygiene product might give them. . . ."

Associated Press, Sun-Sentinel, February 18, 1995: "The WTA Tour's decision to refuse a $10 million-plus title sponsor offer from Tampax appears to have backfired. 'Now we're hearing that women are planning to boycott our tournaments because they're ticked off that we walked away from the Tampax deal,' an unhappy tour executive said."

As you can see, the WTA did not do the research about the Tampax deal. If Bernie Lincicome wouldn't make fun of them for it, nobody would. Bernie even makes some very good points. Steffi Graf had no problems with Tampax as a sponsor, but obviously somebody else did.

THIS TENNIS EVENT BROUGHT TO YOU BY, UM, WELL . . .
Bernie Lincicome
Chicago Tribune
February 22, 1995

In another life I killed a golf tournament. It is not something I am proud of, I didn't mean to, but there it is.

It was the American Motors Golf Classic. Let's be clear. I did not kill American Motors, just its golf tournament.

For reasons since lost, as host columnist, I referred to the thing as the Jeep Open.

This irritated the sponsors considerably. They looked at my references to the Jeep as ridicule. Every day one of them would come by my workstation to remind me of the proper corporate title.

They warned me that if I continued to make fun of their company, they would not be back in my community as sponsors. And they were not.

Since then Jeep has become a product of considerable prestige and pride and any enterprise would be glad to have its cachet, but that golf tournament now belongs to Honda, which has sold many lawnmowers and a lot of local real estate since.

All this is by way of sidestepping into the topic of this column, which is about feminine hygiene and women's tennis.

The fact that, like Peer Gynt, I had to go roundabout to even get to the subject illustrates the whole issue.

It may seem to be a reach, but here's the connection. What appears inappropriate at one time is fine in another.

Or, and I absolutely guarantee this, I may make jokes about four-wheelers but never about Tampax.

The women's tennis tour, without a sponsor for more than a year, rejected a $10 million association with a perfectly honorable product.

Tampax did not even want its name above the tour, as Virginia Slims used to have.

Now, it occurs to me that after prospering from a long association with cigarettes, the last thing women's tennis should be concerned about is dying from embarrassment.

What is the message here? Lung cancer is good. A healthy body is bad.


Women tennis players argued for years that just because a tobacco company was paying the bills, that didn't mean they smoked. And it didn't mean they endorsed smoking.

Tobacco became an issue that needed defending against pickets and protesters at every tour stop. I cannot imagine even Newt "Foxholes Are For Men" Gingrich being against feminine hygiene.

Was that a joke? That's what the women are afraid of. Jokes. Ridicule. Showing up on David Letterman's Top 10 list.

Women's tennis may be the first sport to ever blush its way out of business.

While this is not a subject that comes up in ordinary conversation, neither does athlete's foot or jock itch or underwear, all of which I have seen in sponsorship of men's sports.

Jim Palmer found a whole second career wearing briefs, and Michael Jordan boasts about changing his as often as he changes sports.

Someone must still be doing those old Pete Rose commercials where a man wants to smell like a man.

Men's sports are sponsored by beer and cigarettes and whiskey and all manner of harmful gunk. Should women have corporate associations only with cosmetics and jewelry and homemaking magazines?

If Joe Namath could admit to wearing pantyhose, why can't Steffi Graf admit to wearing panty liners?

The women's tour is afraid that local tournament sponsors will not want to be associated with Tampax as the primary endorser, and the feedback they've gotten seems to bear out the apprehension.

What a weak alibi is that. This is really a great chance for women to defuse the very prejudices involved in being a woman.

They are demeaning themselves and insulting the rest of us by suggesting that the world is just a bunch of pubescent boys giggling at recess.

Make a stand for your gender. I offer this advice from experience. Yesterday's Jeep is tomorrow's sport-utility vehicle.
 
#4,569 ·
Also worth noting that Stephanie Tolleson was Monica Seles' agent. It's a very tangled web there.

WTA Tour at disadvantage in wake of Tampax controversy?
The Washington Times
Saturday, February 25, 1995
Josh Young

Frank Deford writes in the March issue of Vanity Fair that "women's tennis' main problem may be more delusional than operational."

In fact, the sport's problem appears to be a delicate balance of the two.

In a move that appears to be steeped in conflict and Draconian in nature, the WTA Tour recently rejected Tampax as its sponsor and signed over the tour's marketing rights to International Management Group (IMG).

The WTA Tour's chief executive officer, Anne Person Worcester, and its players association president, Martina Navratilova, told The New York Times that they feared a backlash from individual tournament sponsors because of the nature of the sponsor.

Like this:

The Tampax deal was brought to the WTA Tour by McLean-based Advantage International, the tour's marketing agent at the time. Sources familiar with the deal say Tampax's parent company, Tambrands, offered an average of $3.2 million per year for four years. The tour would have retained television and licensing rights.

Tambrands was sensitive to possible controversy. The company would not have required its name in the WTA Tour title. Further, it offered a non-refundable payment of $3 million to the WTA Tour until Jan. 1, 1996, to test the waters for negative feedback among consumers, players and sponsors.

Curiously, the WTA Tour board of directors never met to formally vote on the Tampax deal. Why the tour didn't take a few months to fairly test public opinion and let officials and players study the deal's merits is a mystery.


After rejecting the Tambrands deal, the WTA Tour asked the three major tennis agencies - IMG, Advantage International and the Arlington-based ProServ - to bid on its rights. Advantage already had put its best deal forward, and ProServ passed on what it considered a dicey proposition. This left the WTA Tour in the hands of its predator, IMG.

Last September, IMG threatened to start a competing women's tour. To pacify IMG, the restructured WTA Tour hastily hired Worcester to fill its vacant CEO slot, after she had already been passed over months earlier. This is where the coincidences start to pile up.

Consider that Worcester is the person who ultimately scuttled the Tampax deal, a move that allowed IMG to acquire the tour's rights. (IMG was opposed to the Tampax deal.)

Consider also that Worcester got her start in the business working for IMG, and the point people at IMG on the tour sponsorship are Worcester's longtime friend, Stephanie Tolleson, and Tolleson's second husband, Peter Johnson, who happens to be Navratilova's agent. Initially, both Worcester and Navratilova were in favor of the Tampax deal.

IMG, which made a similar deal with the ATP Tour for approximately seven times the money, reportedly has guaranteed the WTA tour $16 million over five years for all rights, including television and licensing. The tour sponsorship would last from 1996-1999, giving IMG this year to shop the deal around. (IMG would have to subsidize the tour in the unlikely event no sponsor is found.)

Although the fine print still is to be worked out, it appears that IMG got a good deal, and the WTA Tour got a rotten one.

IMG has a large stake in women's tennis, as the owner of six WTA Tour events and agent to Arantxa Sanchez Vicario, Mary Pierce, Jennifer Capriati and the missing Monica Seles. Having the rights to the tour both protects its interests and creates new opportunities.

Were it not for Advantage International, IMG would control women's tennis. Advantage owns seven tournaments and represents three of the top five players - Steffi Graf, Conchita Martinez and Jana Novotna. (ProServ owns no tournaments and counts Gabriela Sabatini as its primary asset.)

The loose structure of the deal also works to IMG's advantage. If IMG delivers a company willing to pay $2 million a year for the title sponsorship and the tour rejects the offer, then IMG has fulfilled that part of its guarantee.

This is especially significant because there are very few companies available as potential sponsors. Alcohol and tobacco companies have been ruled out. Packaged goods companies don't look too promising in the wake of Kraft dropping the final year of its sponsorship.

Automobile and beverage companies are non-controversial, but there are numerous existing conflicts. How would the Ford Australian Open feel about being on the Toyota Tour? Or what would the Lipton Championships say about the Diet Pepsi Tour?

As for financial service companies, talks with the forgotten Diner's Club didn't work out last year, and it's doubtful VISA would be interested. That leaves telecommunications companies, carrying with it the hope that IMG could get in touch with Seles and talk her back onto the court.
 
#4,570 ·
Posting this now to tie up the Open Gaz de France return. Attentive readers will recall that the 1995 Delray Beach and Lipton Championships were covered last year. Rather than repost or skip a whole month, I'll post stuff from the 1987 VS of FL and Lipton. I think you will find it very educational and entertaining.

It's not the Steffi Graf we knew
To compete in Delray Beach
The Boca Raton News
March 5, 1995
Rick Mewhirter

It looked like the same Steffi Graf. She had the same dominant forehand and the same relentless style. She won the tournament handily.

But, to listen to Graf herself speak, it wasn't the same player.

One of the most dominant players in tennis history returned in mid-February after a three-month layoff caused by back and leg injuries to run through the field at the Open Gaz de France in Paris, taking the title with a 6-2, 6-2 win over Mary Pierce. During the tournament, Graf beat the third-ranked Pierce and fifth-ranked Jana Novotna and lost just 17 games in winning four matches.

She plays her second tournament after the layoff at the Delray Beach Winter Championships on Monday through Sunday, March 12 at the Delray Beach Tennis Center. Daily match schedules will not be released until tonight, but Graf will play Patricia Hy-Boulais or a qualifier during the featured match on either Tuesday or Wednesday evening.

"Obviously, I didn't know how it was going to work out. I was surprised how well I did," the 25-year-old Graf said of her run through the Open Gaz de France field. "I did have a lot of time off. I always thought I'd be able to play the tournament coming up. I thought I'd play the Australian Open. Then I put in some practice and thought I'd be able to play (the Toray Pan Pacific Open) and Chicago.

"(When you're not playing tournaments) it's difficult to say where you're at. You don't know what you're practicing for. I was a little anxious about how I was."

Graf said her back injury does not limit her strokes on the court. But it has forced her to cut back on her training schedule. She is not working on any specific part of her game, but rather has concentrated on regaining her stamina.

"If you knew what I went through the last three, four months, you'd know how much adversity I have been through," she said. "I just want to be injury-free. I just want to play."

Graf, who has a home at the Polo Club Boca Raton, has dominated the Winter Championships, formerly the Virginia Slims of Florida. She has played in the event seven of the last eight years, reaching the finals each year. She won the tournament in 1987, 1989 and the last three years, beating Conchita Martinez in 1992 and Arantxa Sanchez Vicario in 1993 and 1994.

Graf -- whose Delray Beach title last year came in the midst of 27 consecutive straight-set victories -- has a 37-3 record at the Winter Championships.

"I used to live next door," Graf said of the event, which moved to Delray Beach from the Polo Club in 1993. "That always made it fun and easy for me to play."

The layoff has hurt Graf in the rankings. Sanchez Vicario, who won three of six matches against Graf last season, is guaranteed of retaining the top spot through the Lipton Championships, even if Graf wins her fourth straight Winter Championships title.

Graf, as usual, does not seem too concerned.

"Maybe it's exciting for everybody to find out who's number one," Graf said. "It's not that different for me. It's just the beginning of the year. I don't have a lot of tournaments right now."
 
#4,571 ·
Setting the stage for early 1987: Steffi had skipped the AO to work on her game and to prevent running out of fuel over the long haul (from the end of 1986: "Winning so many matches is difficult. I don't feel I've played too many tournaments, but I haven't had time to work on my game because I've been playing so much") and although it will become apparent that some people doubted she was working on her game, she really was working on her game.

Here we see that there is still some hand-wringing about who will fill the shoes of Chris 'n' Martina and a rare admission from a promoter that they have been somewhat lazy, and it isn't too much to infer that they are not expecting a sudden change to the status quo or looking forward to the day it does finally happen.

Slims Offers A Glimpse at Tennis' Future
THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
Thursday, February 12, 1987
Glenn Dickey

THE FUTURE and the past are well represented in the Slims of California tennis tournament at Civic Auditorium this week. What's missing is most of the present.

The past is a doubles exhibition Saturday with Billie Jean King, Betty Stove, Val Ziegenfuss and Rosie Casals. In addition to everything else she has done for tennis and women sports, Billie Jean was the first winner of this tournament, in 1971.

The teenagers in the tournament represent the future of tennis.

And the present is Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert Lloyd, both of whom are conspicuously absent this week. The tournament has the fourth-ranked player in the world in Hana Mandlikova, who played her first match last night, but to most tennis fans, Hana is merely "the best of the rest."

Martina and Chris have come to represent women's tennis, so much so that they have tried to alternate their tournament appearances so that as many tournaments as possible could have one of them in the field.

Those in the media have invariably turned to one or the other for their interviews, which means that very little is known about other players.

"Some of that is our fault," says publicist Kevin Diamond, son of local promoter Jerry Diamond. "When you have Chris or Martina in the field, it's very easy. You set up one mass interview and arrange for them to do some TV shots and interviews with columnists, and then just sit back. It's the lazy man's way of promotion."

The emphasis on Martina and Chris has been understandable because they've dominated their sport for 12 years in a way no two athletes have ever done, in any sport.

Since Chris took over the top spot in 1975, for instance, either she or Martina has been No. 1 except for April 1980 when Tracy Austin made a cameo appearance in that role.

In that period, the two women have won 43 of the 48 "Grand Slam" tournaments. Austin won the U.S. Open in '81; Mandlikova has won the U.S. and French Opens once each and the Australian Open twice (the second time last month). Otherwise, it has been all Navratilova-Evert Lloyd.

BUT CHRIS has announced that she's going to cut back on her tournament schedule, and Martina has shown signs of tiring of the battle, too. The end of their reign is probably in sight.

What then? Who will step forward?

Of the players immediately below Martina and Chris now, Mandlikova is obviously the best. Hana is capable of great heights, but she seems to lack the mental attitude and fundamental strokes (especially her backhand) to dominate. With her gracefulness on the court, she reminds me very much of Evonne Goolagong, but Goolagong never was able to develop consistency, and I doubt Hana will, either.

Pam Shriver has the ability, but, ironically, she is probably too well balanced ever to become a champion. The champions typically are singleminded in their pursuit of excellence; Pam seems too intelligent to limit herself that way.

Of the rest, only Zina Garrison seems to have the ability to improve enough to reach the top, but she's a long shot at best. What we will have, most likely, is a transitional period in which Hana wins more often than the others but nobody dominates - until one or two of the teenagers takes charge.

There are seven youngsters who seem capable of reaching the top. Three of them are Americans - Melissa Gurney, Stephanie Rehe and Mary Jo Fernandez. The others are foreign: Steffi Graf (West Germany), Gabriela Sabatini (Argentina), Katerina Maleeva (Bulgaria) and Helen Kelesi (Canada). All but Graf and Kelesi are playing this week, though Sabatini was beaten in her first-round match.

Of the seven, Sabatini is thought to have the best strokes, Graf the most competitive nature. But close observers of the women's tennis tour think that any of the seven are capable of rising to the top.

It won't be instantaneous. To prevent the early burnout that hit once outstanding players like Austin and Andrea Jaeger, there are limits put on the number of tournaments youngsters can play. And there seems to be less parental pressure on these players, with the exception of Graf's father.

RIGHT NOW, the seven players are fairly equal. But history tells us that a couple of them will emerge, probably within the next two years, and remain on top for several years.

Which players will rise to the top? That's a question tennis audiences - including the ones at Civic this week - are pondering right now. It's a much different tournament with neither Chris nor Martina in the field, but in a way, it's more intriguing than it has been in years. Suspense has come back into women's tennis.
 
#4,572 ·
Robert Lansdorp clearly didn't know Steffi Graf or understand that the revolution that began in earnest at the U.S. Clay Court Championships in late April/early May of 1986 was about to reach its first real crescendo.

Navratilova, Lloyd Finally May Have Found Some Company . . . : Three Is a Crowd, but Graf Doesn't Mind
February 7, 1987
LISA DILLMAN
Los Angeles Times

Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert Lloyd are still standing, still No. 1 and No. 2 atop the world of women's tennis. They have withstood the first wave, the second wave and the third wave of young would-be replacements.

Tracy Austin was the first. She posed a strong threat to the Navratilova-Lloyd regime but was defeated by nagging back and shoulder injuries.

In the second wave, Andrea Jaeger defeated herself. And although Pam Shriver and Hana Mandlikova may have had the physical skills, they also may have lacked the necessary psychological equipment.

Gabriela Sabatini was the third wave. She caught the fancy of the tennis world in 1985, but her '86 results seem to have shown her to be just another pretty face.

So now, there is a new entry on the list of those who would be queen. Her name is Steffi Graf. She is 17.

In a five-week stretch last spring, the West German defeated Lloyd and Navratilova. It was a rare clean sweep of the big two.

Is there, at last, a big three?

"I always mention Steffi's name first when I talk about the up-and-coming girls on the tour," Lloyd said last year. "She has a monster forehand, and in terms of pace, it is the best in women's tennis."

Ted Tinling, who serves as master of ceremonies at Virginia Slims events and has followed women's tennis for nearly 60 years, said: "We always thought she was the most hopeful. Chris Evert herself promoted Steffi's game. Now she's probably sorry she said those things."

Here's why:

--Graf compiled a 24-match winning streak, including 4 tournament victories last spring. She fought off match points in two of those finals, one against Sabatini at the U.S. Clay Courts and the other against another West German, Claudia Kohde-Kilsch, in the WTA Championships.

--Her victories over Lloyd and Navratilova were in straight sets. Graf beat Lloyd, 6-4, 7-5, last April and defeated Navratilova, 6-2, 6-3, in May at the German Open.

--In the 1986 U.S. Open, Graf established herself as a genuine threat to the long-running Chris and Martina show. Her semifinal against Navratilova was the match of the year in women's tennis.

The exciting, tense, three-set match, which took two days to complete because of rain, even had the male players screaming at the television set in their locker room. After losing the first set, 6-1, Graf won the second in a tiebreaker and held three match points in the third before Navratilova prevailed.

At first, after the victory over Lloyd last spring, Graf seemed almost stunned by her new postion. Becoming No. 3 in the world wasn't in the plans at the beginning of 1986. Neither were victories over Lloyd and Navratilova.

"For the first time, it is really strange," Graf said in an interview last year. "You were always looking at the top of the draw and you saw Martina or Evert there. Now everybody expects me to win and there's a little more pressure on me. But I can handle it pretty good . . . I hope."

Whether Graf can handle the pressure will likely manifest itself during the next Grand Slam events. She came down with a virus at the French Open and missed Wimbledon because of the illness. But nerves were no problem at the U.S. Open. In the second and third sets against Navratilova, she appeared supremely confident.

That, however, wasn't the case the night before. When rain interrupted play, Graf was down, 1-4, and Navratilova was playing brilliantly.

"That evening, I had a bad feeling," Graf recalled. "I thought, 'What am I going to do?' Before I played her, I had practiced against a lefty. But in the morning before we played again, I thought, 'I don't give a damn.' It didn't matter who I played against--lefty or righty."

When Navratilova won the first set, Graf's main goal was to try to win some more games. She started playing well and managed to hit some sharp passing shots. Then came the two tiebreakers, with Navratilova coming up the winner in the third set.

"After it was over, the crowd was really standing behind me and I felt so good," Graf said. "The people were the ones who pushed me and Martina to the next level. Just standing there, I was chilled on the court. It was such a good feeling. I wanted to do something, to say something to the crowd."

Afterward, Graf recalled that her father, Peter, told her that she had played so well. What else could she have done?

"I told him, 'I could have won.' "

In this country--and in tournaments such as the Newsweek Women's event she is playing in this weekend in Indian Wells, Calif.--Graf is probably the least known of the world's top five women players. She's well known in Germany but is overshadowed by Boris Becker, which suits her just fine.

And for a long time, she played in the shadow of Sabatini, who is now her doubles partner. At the 1985 French Open and Wimbledon, Sabatini was besieged by interview requests. As for Graf, it was: Steffi who?

"I wasn't angry about it or anything," Graf said. "She's a very good player. I didn't mind it. Yeah, it does take some (pressure) off. Everybody was looking after her. They knew her more. And they always wanted to see her. And I had time off."

That time off gave Graf the opportunity to refine her serve and backhand in relative anonymity. Some have felt, including Graf, that the attention lavished upon Sabatini helped Graf progress faster.

The life of anonymity has started to change. Obviously, the tennis world and general sporting public have lots of questions about Graf. Beating Lloyd and Navratilova will do that.

For instance, who is Steffi Graf?

"It's so hard to say," she said. "I would say I'm usually shy, and I hate to talk too much. After my first win, I felt more comfortable with everything. I was more relaxed. I am somebody, who at first, is quiet. I need some time to get used to the person. Usually I am not someone who is that open.

"But I am getting used to it more and more. And I mostly know the answers to the questions."

Hobbies? Shopping and cooking.

Favorite groups? Lionel Richie, Phil Collins, Wham!

Favorite team? Lakers.

Favorite movie? "Platoon."

But one question stumped her. Graf was talking about another hobby. She likes to collect little liquor bottles, like the ones you get on airplanes.

"But most of them are empty," she said, shrugging. "I'm trying to get more full ones."

Why are they empty?

"Not me," she said, laughing and looking embarrassed.

It isn't unusual for athletes to take on different characteristics once they start competing. Graf fits this category. Her court demeanor is a stark contrast to her off-court personality. In tense matches, she sometimes yells in German after missing on a big point or bangs her racket on the court after what she perceives as a bad call.

Graf claims she does have fun on the court, despite evidence to the contrary.

"I guess that's the way it looks, everybody's told me that," she said. "I know. Whenever everybody says I should smile more on the court, that's impossible for me. I'm just so concentrated out there. Even when my father and me are practicing, my father will say, 'You are looking so . . . not relaxed.' It's so hard for me."

It is, indeed, hard for someone who hates to lose. At anything. She dislikes even losing at cards. Before her matches, Graf plays cards or backgammon with her father. To put her in a good frame of mine, Peter Graf usually lets her win.

"I'm horrible," she said. "I get so mad at myself if I lose. I don't like it when he lets me win, either."

Almost every young player has a coach or mentor to help combat the stress. In Graf's case, the duty rests with her coach and father.

"I never had to push Steffi," Peter Graf said. "I never had to say, 'Steffi, please play tennis.' She insisted. When she was young, I never said, 'Steffi, want to play tennis?' I only had to say, 'Slowly.' "

Peter Graf is as surprised as his daughter about her rapid climb up the tennis ladder.

"Steffi makes not only one step, she makes some steps more," he said. "She has unbelieveable discipline. She always wants to win. Whether it is in backgammon or cards or tennis. She's a winner.

"Steffi now has a very good chance to stay in the top three. But I am not American. Americans are more, 'Oh, you are the next star.' "

Until recently, the American way and Peter Graf were on a collision course. He was regarded on the tour as an ogre. He frequently chastised tour officials and the media. Once, after Steffi had lost to Navratilova in a tournament final, he tried to pull her off the court before the presentation ceremony.

Things started to improve upon the realization that he needed a better image.

"That was not right from us," Peter Graf said of the tournament incident. "I was too much at fault. I still have much to work on. But I think we have also worked on my image now."

It got to the point where Peter Graf decided not to travel as extensively with his daughter. She said her father never liked the grueling travel and prefers to stay home in Bruehl to work on business projects.

Still, Graf needed a coach for the times her father stayed home. Pavel Slozil, Czechoslovakian Davis Cup player, entered the picture three months ago. Slozil, who continues to play the circuit occasionally, had met Peter Graf at tournaments.

When Graf took time off after the Virginia Slims championship, she worked with Slozil on improving her backhand, her passing shots and her serve. But when it comes to the big tournaments, Graf will keep looking to her father for support.

"He will do everything for me," she said. "He is the one who knows what is best for me and he will always be there. . . . Some people were writing very bad about my father. Maybe they wanted us to split up. That, for sure, will never happen."

After the U.S. Open match against Navratilova, Graf was quoted as saying that Martina was beatable and that Chris wasn't so tough anymore.

"My words were totally mixed up," she said. "I said, if you play a match like this, you have to feel you can beat them. What I said is that they're more beatable now. The more you play them, the more chances you have. I'm just beginning . . . and they are 30 and 32.

"I felt bad it sounded that way. I started to get some bad letters from Britain. They said, you can't beat Chris and Martina."

Graf laughed. She said she isn't in a hurry, thinking it might take two or three years to break into the top two. "I don't think anybody is going to be the next Martina or Chris," said Robert Lansdorp, the former coach of Austin and tour player Stephanie Rehe. "Everybody, that is, from three on down, doesn't believe that they can be No. 1. When Chris and Martina do retire, for whatever reason, there's going to be an unbelieveable enthusiasm with everybody else . . . thinking they can be No. 1."

People now know about Graf, the top contender for the throne. She's been to 1986 what Becker was to 1985--the child prodigy, the new hope.

No doubt, 1987 will be Graf's testing ground. This year, she will have her greatest opportunity yet to break up the hierarchy in women's tennis.
 
#4,573 ·
Oh yes, Steffi learned to be diplomatic. 98% of the times when she used a variation of the "I'm looking forward to seeing her and playing her again" line, you should interpret it as "I'm looking forward to kicking her butt." :lol:

Also laughing at Steffi mentioning that the other players aren't scared of her anymore: That would soon change!

NOW THAT SHE'S NO. 3 ON CHARTS, STEFFI'S REMARKS ARE LESS GRAF-IC - VIRGINIA SLIMS OF FLORIDA
Sun-Sentinel
Tuesday, February 17, 1987
By JIM SARNI, Staff Writer

BOCA RATON -- Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert Lloyd can hear the footsteps.

Steffi Graf is No. 3 and gaining ground fast. Last year the West German teen-ager knocked off Evert and Navratilova for the first time and won eight tournaments.

Graf also made some noise with her mouth. After surrendering three match points and losing to Navratilova in a memorable semifinal at the U.S. Open, Graf said:

-- Of Navratilova: ''She's not that much better than everybody else. I'm getting closer now. I have to improve my serve, and it will be a much tougher match for her.''

-- Of Evert: ''I don't think she's that great anymore. I mean she's good. But I think she's getting back a little bit. She's not moving so good anymore. She's not what she was one or two years ago.''

Graf meant to express her confidence. Instead she came off cocky.

''I said it a little bit wrong,'' said Graf, who will play her first match in the Virginia Slims of Florida Wednesday at the Polo Club.

''I meant that it was important to win once and beat them instead of just trying to win a couple of games. I know I have a chance when I play Chris or Martina now.''

Sunday, if all goes according to consensus, Graf will face Evert in the final. Two weeks later in Key Biscayne, at the Lipton International Players Championships, it's likely that Graf will meet Navratilova or Evert in the semifinals.

The matches could say a lot about the immediate future of women's tennis.

''At the moment, I just want to play a consistent game. I'm not thinking about No. 1 or No. 2,'' Graf said. ''Everyone is telling me that I can make it this year, but I can't think of what people expect of me. It is way too early. I'm only 17 and I have a long career ahead of me.''

The first obstacle is Evert, 32, who has been No. 2 for five years but is coming off a serious knee injury. Evert plays her first tournament match in five months tonight against Elna Reinach of South Africa, and no one, including Evert, knows what to expect this week.

''It's hard to say how Chris will play -- she's been off for a long time -- but I think she will do well,'' Graf said, diplomatically this time. ''I'm looking forward to seeing her and playing her again.''

Graf comes to Florida eager and determined. She took December and January off, skipping the Australian Open on grass, her least favorite surface. She played an exhibition in Indian Wells, Calif., two weeks ago and destroyed Hana Mandlikova, who beat Navratilova in the final of the Australian Open.

''I needed the time off,'' Graf said. ''I was mentally tired and not concentrating on my tennis. My father (Peter) makes sure I don't play too much tennis, but it's tough for me to keep my hands off a racket. It's good to be back and I feel like I'm hitting the ball well. I'm moving well. I'm ready to play.''

Graf stayed in shape by skiing and playing basketball. She also took on a full-time coach, Pavel Slozil, a former player from Czechoslovakia whom local fans may remember as the surprise runner-up at the WCT Gold Coast Cup at Laver's in Delray Beach in 1983.

''We tried it out for a few weeks and it worked well,'' Graf said.

Graf, who won 64 of 70 matches in 1986, has noticed a change in her opponents' attitude now that she has joined the game's elite.

''A year ago, opponents were scared of me because I was young and I had nothing to lose,'' she said. ''Now they play as if they have nothing to lose. They are not scared.''

Graf faces great expectations but does not seem scared, either. She has been reaching for the top since she turned pro at 13. She is 17 and getting better. Navratilova and Evert are getting older.

Listen to the footsteps.

--

Sara Gomer upset No. 10 seed Terry Phelps 7-5, 2-6, 7-6 (10-8), and Laura Gildemeister ousted No. 12 Barbara Potter 6-4, 7-5. . . Andrea Temesvari pulled out with an ankle injury. Her place was taken by lucky loser Annabel Croft. . . Reinach beat Nathalie Tauziat 4-6, 6-4, 6-4 to earn the right to face Evert in tonight's feature match. . .

Monday's key results

-- No. 9 Raffaella Reggi d. Patricia Tarabini 7-5, 4-6, 6-1.

-- Sara Gomer d. No. 10 Terry Phelps 7-5, 2-6, 7-6 (10-8).

-- No. 11 Carling Bassett vs. Kate Gompert.

-- Laura Gildemeister d. No. 12 Barbara Potter 6-4, 7-5.

-- No. 14 Sabrina Goles d. Mercedes Paz 6-4, 6-3.

Today's feature matches

(Starting at 6 p.m.)

-- No. 13 Mary Joe Fernandez vs. Elizabeth Smylie.

-- No. 1 Chris Evert Lloyd vs. Elna Reinach.
 
#4,574 ·
GRAF, SHRIVER EASILY GAIN THIRD ROUND
The Wichita Eagle
Thursday, February 19, 1987
ASSOCIATED PRESS

West German Steffi Graf, ranked No. 3 in the world, whipped Angeliki Kanellopoulou of Greece 6-2, 6-0 in 35 minutes Wednesday night to advance to the third round of the $250,000 Virginia Slims of Florida women's tennis championships in Boca Raton, Fla.

Earlier in the day, third-seeded Pam Shriver of Lutherville, Md., beat Dinky Van Rensburg of South Africa 6-3, 6-2, and fourth-seeded Helena Sukova of Czechoslovakia eliminated Jo Durie of Great Britain 6-4, 6-3 after a four-hour rain delay.

"The weather conditions made it difficult to put the ball away," Shriver said. "The heavy air favored the people who like to stay back and run."

Shriver, ranked fifth in the world, lost service from 40-15 at the start of the match and Van Rensburg held for a 2-0 lead. But Shriver rallied back, winning the last three games of the first set and reaching 3-1 in the second.

Graf, seeded second to top-seed Chris Evert Lloyd, who won her second round match Tuesday, suffered just one lapse in her match. She double-faulted twice and lost service in the third game, but quickly recovered to take the next 11 games, losing only 11 points.

"The first few games were not easy for me," Graf said, after her first tournament match since last November's Virginia Slims championships. "But I think she did not serve as well as she can. I haven't played tournaments, but I have practiced well and I'm playing well."

In other second-round night matches, sixth-seeded Gabriela Sabatini of Argentina beat Annabel Croft of England 6-2, 6-4.

Ranked sixth in the world, Sukova could face top-seeded Chris Evert Lloyd in the semifinals for a rematch of their U.S. Open semifinal which Sukova won. She said, however, that she won't look that far ahead.

"I feel more confident since that match and I'm playing well," Sukova said. "But I will look at closer matches one at a time."

Evert Lloyd, who spent the five months since the Open recovering from a knee injury, reached the third round Tuesday night with a 6-4, 6-2 victory over Elna Reinach of South Africa.

Edberg, Becker advance

INDIAN WELLS, Calif. - Top-seeded Stefan Edberg of Sweden and Boris Becker of West Germany each won second-round matches as seven seeded players advanced in the $435,000 Pilot Pen Classic men's tournament.

Edberg defeated Pablo Arraya of Peru 6-3, 6-3 while Becker, the second seed, downed Tim Wilkison of Asheville, N.C., 7-5, 6-4.

In other second-round action: fourth-seeded Mats Wilander, Sweden, breezed past Sergio Casal, Spain, 6-3, 6-0; No. 6 seed Joakim Nystrom, Sweden, beat Matt Anger, Pleasanton, Calif., 6-2, 7-5; ninth-seeded Kent Carlsson, Sweden, outlasted Christo van Rensburg, South Africa, 6-2, 2-6, 6-4; No. 10 seed Emilio Sanchez, Spain, bested Karel Novacek, Czechoslovakia, 3-6, 6-2, 6-3; and 12th-seeded Thierry Tulasne, France, bested Eric Jelen, West Germany, 6-2, 6-0.

"I did my job," Edberg said. "The court is very slow. If you serve well, you can get the big points. I played him in the French Open two years ago and there's not a lot of change in his game."

Arraya said that Edberg has improved his game since the 1985 French Open.

"He is much stronger now," the Peruvian said. "If I could have won the first set, then I was hoping he'd choke."

"It was a tough battle," Becker said. "It was a long match, especially under the conditions. It was your normal first match. He beat me the last time we played, so today I was just trying to win."

The disruptive conditions did not bother Wilkison, who had more trouble controlling his emotions than his ground strokes.

"A lot of games were back and forth," Wilkison said. "I sort of liked the rough conditions. I was pretty tense, though, about as tense as I could be."

King-Freebody win

CHICAGO - Billie Jean King and Patricia Freebody of Chicago successfully opened defense of the women's 40 doubles title in the USTA Women's 40, 50, 60 National Indoor Championships. King and Freebody scored a convincing 7-6, 6-2 win over Katie Kouba of Wheaton, Ill., and Joyce Penn of Glen Ellyn, Ill., in their first match of the tournament at the Mid-Town Tennis Club.
 
#4,575 ·
This kind of scoreline and time and "only lost X points in Y games" stats are going to be a feature of this part of 1987. You'd think the rest of the ladies would begin to suspect there's a real, live shark at their pool party.

LMAO at Steffi missing her flight out after the 1986 USO semi. Have you ever been so mad you forgot to bring your coach/hitting partner? Steffi Graf has! :lol:


GRAF HAS 2ND-ROUND SWEEP
The Miami Herald
Thursday, February 19, 1987
PAT BORZI, Herald Sports Writer

On an imperfect day, Steffi Graf eliminated her second-round opponent in the $250,000 Virginia Slims of Florida with perfect precision.

Playing her 6:15 p.m. match as if she had to be someplace at 7 o'clock, the 17-year-old Graf needed only 35 minutes to crush Angeliki Kanellopoulou of Greece, 6-2, 6-0, on a starless, windless Wednesday night at the Polo Club of Boca Raton.

"She wasn't playing too well today," understated the second-seeded Graf, who swept the last 11 games while losing only 11 points.

The victory capped a day in which virtually all the top seeds -- Pam Shriver, Helena Sukova, Claudia Kohde-Kilsch and Gabriela Sabatini -- struggled to win second-round matches, and in which morning play started four hours late because of rain, causing 10 matches to be moved to the International Tennis Resort (formerly Laver's) in Delray Beach.

But Graf, who electrified the tennis world by winning eight tournaments last year, provided the most stunning show.

Playing her first match after a 2 1/2-month break from the tour spent mostly at home in West Germany, Graf overcame a rough start to prove why she's ranked No. 3 in the world behind Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert Lloyd.

Graf double-faulted twice in the third game as Kanellopoulou broke her serve to go ahead, 2-1.

"I practiced mostly with Pavel (Slozil, a former tour player), and he has a pretty hard serve," Graf said. "She has a soft one, so I missed a few."

Not the rest of the match, she didn't. Smoking forehands past Kanellopoulou, Graf broke the 21-year-old Greek's serve at love, then held serve at love to go up, 3-2. Talk about overpowering: Kanellopoulou won only four points the rest of the set.

When Graf whizzed a forehand winner by Kanellopoulou to break serve in the second set for a 2-0 lead, an overmatched Kanellopoulou shook her head in frustration, helpless to stop the attack.

Moments later it was over, and Graf came to press room to face more questions about last year than about Wednesday's match.

Graf pulled away from the pack of teen-age challengers in 1986 to establish herself as the leading heir to Navratilova and Evert.

"Last year was an unbelievable year for me," Graf said. "I never expected anything like that, winning eight tournaments and five doubles. I had a lot of fun."

But she said she did lose something important to her: her privacy, especially in her homeland. Whenever she goes to her favorite places -- shopping malls, the movies, even the hairdresser -- she is recognized.

"I like to be at home very much, visiting my family and my dogs," said Graf, who has a German Shepherd named Max and a boxer named Ben. "But the German press always wants interviews. So I stay there one or two weeks, and I'm happy to go on tour again."

And wherever she goes, people ask about Graf's most painful memory of 1986 -- her three-set loss to Navratilova in the U.S. Open semifinals.

"I felt really bad," she said. "I didn't make the flight to Tokyo for my next tournament."

She says she has improved since that day, but doesn't think she's ready to move Martina or Chris out just yet.

"My serve is getting better, and my backhand is getting better," she said. "So far, I'm hoping to be a steady No. 3. I think No. 1 is a little bit further away."

It seemed even further away for Sabatini, who played a stadium court match after Graf. The sixth-seeded Sabatini overcame a 3-0 second-set deficit to beat Annabel Croft of England, 6-2, 6-4.

Croft lost badly to Sabatini in a tournament four months ago. "She's playing very much better," said Sabatini, a 16-year- old Argentine who lives in Key Biscayne. "She's hitting the ball harder. She moved me a lot."

Third-seeded Shriver, No. 4 Sukova and No. 5 Kohde-Kilsch had to work to advance. Trailing by 0-2 in the first set, Shriver rallied for a 6-3, 6-2 victory over Dinky van Rensburg. Sukova outlasted Jo Durie of England, 6-4, 6-3, and Kohde-Kilsch defeated Eva Pfaff, 6-4, 6-2.

Wednesday's results

(Seedings in parentheses)

SECOND-ROUND SINGLES

Gigi Fernandez d. Alycia Moulton, 6-2, 6-2; Pam Shriver (3) d. Dinky van Rensburg, 6-3, 6-2; Helena Sukova (4) d. Jo Durie, 6-4, 6-3; Claudia Kohde-Kilsch (5) d. Eva Pfaff, 6-4, 6-2; Sara Gomer d. Anne Minter, 6-4, 4-6, 6-3; Catarina Lindqvist (8) d. Tine Scheuer-Larsen, 7-5, 6-1; Raffaella Reggi (9) d. Gretchen Rush Magers, 6-4, 6-3.

Mary Joe Fernandez (13) d. Larisa Savchenko, 6-2, 6-1; Kate Gompert d. Regina Marsikova, 6-3, 6-3; Patty Fendick d. Lisa Bonder, 6-2, 6-4; Helen Kelesi d. Laura Gildemeister, 0-6, 7-5, 6-2; Steffi Graf (2) d. Angeliki Kanellopoulou, 6-2, 6-0; Gabriela Sabatini (6) d. Annabel Croft, 6-2, 6-4; Bettina Bunge (7) d. Pam Casale, 6-3, 6-1; Sabrina Goles (14) d. Catherine Tanvier, 4-6, 6-1, 3-0.

FIRST-ROUND DOUBLES

Isabelle Demongeot-Nathalie Tauziat d. Manon Maria Bollegraf-Nicole Jagerman, 6-4, 6-3; Larisa Savchenko-Svetlana Parkhomenko (6) d. Pat Medrado-Niege Dias, 6-2, 6-1; Bettina Bunge-Laura Gildemeister d. Jenny Byrne-Elizabeth Smylie (5), 6-0, 6-3.

Today's matches

9 a.m. -- Stadium court: Helena Sukova (4) vs. Patty Fendick, Raffaella Reggi (9) vs. Gabriela Sabatini (6), Claudia Kohde-Kilsch (5) vs. Helen Kelesi, Mary Joe Fernandez (13) vs. Pam Shriver (3), Claudia Kohde-Kilsch-Helena Sukova vs. Demonset-Tauziat.

10 a.m. -- Court 9: Harper-Marsikova vs. MacGregor- MacGregor, Catarina Lindqvist (8) vs. Gigi Fernandez. Court 10: Durie-Moulton vs. Potter-W. White, Bassett-Magers vs. A. Minter-Van Nostrand, Sabrina Goles vs. Bettina Bunge (7), Parkhomenko-Saychenko vs. Phelps-Reggi, Goles-Cecchini vs. Burgin-Fairbank.

6 p.m. -- Stadium court: Chris Evert Lloyd (1) vs. Kate Gompert, Sara Gomer vs. Steffi Graf (2), Evert-Pam Shriver (3) vs. Reinach-Reinach or Betzner/Kelesi.
 
#4,576 ·
The big news this day was Evert's loss to Gompert. But savvy observers might have noted the second straight Total Carnage victory produced by Steffi. In another article, Evert suggests the court was too slow and that made it difficult to hit winners, but it doesn't seem like Steffi was having much trouble. :lol:

Gompert shocks Evert Lloyd
St. Petersburg Times
Friday, February 20, 1987
TOM ZUCCO

BOCA RATON - Kate Gompert made a little bit of history Thursday night - at Chris Evert Lloyd's expense.

Gompert, a 23-year-old from Rancho Mirage, Calif., who has been on the women's pro tennis tour only a year-and-a-half, scored a shocking 3-6, 6-4, 6-2 victory over top-seeded Evert Lloyd in the third round of the Virginia Slims of Florida tournament.

The match was Evert Lloyd's second since returning to action after a five-month layoff because of a knee injury. After getting a first-round bye, she had trouble subduing Elna Reinach of South Africa 6-4, 6-2 in a second-round match Tuesday.

Still, nobody expected this. The match, which took two hours and five minutes, was just Evert Lloyd's fourth loss in the state of Florida since early in her career.

After giving up the first set with hardly a fight, Gompert, who was not seeded in the tournament, stormed back in the second set to take a four-games-to-none lead. Evert Lloyd, who has won the tournament for the past three years, fought back and tied the set at four games apiece.

At that point, it appeared Evert Lloyd would satisfy the hometown crowd and silence Gompert once and for all.

But Evert Lloyd turned out to be her worst enemy Thursday. She made five unforced errors in the final two games of the second set and allowed Gompert to stay alive.

''That was the crucial part of the match,'' Evert Lloyd said later. ''After I tied it at 4-4, I let her back in the match. But this was her day. Nothing could go wrong for her.''

Especially not in the third and final set. Gompert twice broke Evert Lloyd's serve and again built a four-games-to-none lead.

Evert Lloyd closed to 4-2, but if mistakes hurt her early in the match, they killed her later on. She made four consecutive unforced errors in the seventh game, and three more in the eighth to virtually hand the game to Gompert.

''I feel fine physically and I'm hitting the ball fine,'' Evert Lloyd said. ''It's just that I haven't had to concentrate in five months. I'd say Kate probably played the match of her life today, so give her some credit too. She was hot tonight.

''I had two options. I could have stayed out there for five hours and run down every ball. Or I could have gone for the winners at an earlier stage. I just felt like going for the winners.''

A knee injury. A lack of concentration. A lack of patience. None of that mattered to Kate Gompert.

''I felt guilty, almost, in beating Chris,'' said Gompert, named the tour's most improved player in 1986. I looked up to her.

''I told myself just before I came onto the court that there were three things I had to do,'' she added. ''I had to stay cool, move my feet and be tough.

''And I did all those things.''

Gompert and Evert Lloyd had met only once before, on a clay court in Houston last year. Evert Lloyd won that match 6-4, 6-1.

And although she missed much of last year with an injury, Evert Lloyd earned $833,755 and is currently ranked second behind Martina Navratilova.

By contrast, Gompert earned $47,265 on the tour last year and is currently ranked 35th on the tour.

''I don't know who I'll be playing next or when,'' Gompert said. (She'll take on 6th-seeded Gabriela Sabatini in the quarterfinals today.) ''If I win, I win. If I lose, well...

''Nothing can ever take this away from me.''

In Thursday night's other night match, second-seeded Steffi Graf of West Germany needed only 34 minutes to beat Sara Gomer of England 6-0, 6-0. Graf allowed only 19 points in the 12 games.

Earlier Thursday, Gigi Fernandez of Puerto Rico beat eighth-seeded Catarina Lindqvist of Sweden 3-6, 6-2, 6-4.

Joining Fernandez and Gompert in the quarterfinals were No. 3 Pam Shriver, No. 4 Helena Sukova of Czechoslovakia, No. 5 Claudia Kohde-Kilsch of West Germany, No. 6 Gabriela Sabatini of Argentina and No. 7 Bettina Bunge of Monaco.

Shriver, No. 5 in the world, beat 15-year-old Mary Joe Fernandez, seeded 13th, 6-2, 6-1, in 53 minutes. Fernandez, ranked 26th in the world, broke Shriver's service to lead 2-1, but Shriver won the next eight games to reach 3-0 in the second set.

Sukova, seeded fourth, defeated tenacious Patty Fendick, the NCAA women's champion for Stanford, 3-6, 6-0, 7-5.

Kohde-Kilsch, seeded fifth, fought off Helen Kelesi of Canada 6-1, 4-6, 6-2.

Sabatini, a 16-year-old who holds a No. 10 world ranking and is seeded sixth here, lost a first-set tiebreaker 7-5 before defeating Raffaella Reggi, Italy's No. 1 player, 6-7, 6-1, 6-4.
 
#4,577 ·
Curb-stompings or bare-knuckle-brawls, Steffi doesn't care! And unlike so many other tennis teens, she was not barely coherent, continuously self-contradictory, bland, oblivious, and/or reliant on the lines written by her handlers.

GRAF GETS A MINI-SCARE BUT WINS
The Miami Herald
Saturday, February 21, 1987
SUSAN MILLER DEGNAN Herald Sports Writer

Steffi Graf, the West German teen-ager who wears down tennis opponents faster than tennis balls, showed mercy Friday afternoon in her quarterfinal match of the $250,000 Virginia Slims of Florida. Not only did she take the first set against Claudia Kohde-Kilsch to a tiebreaker, she more than doubled her playing time -- an hour and 12 minutes rather than her usual 35-minute drubbings.

It was a different story but the same result. Graf, seeded second, went on to a 7-6 (7-4), 6-2 victory and will meet third-seeded Pam Shriver in a semifinal today at the Polo Club in Boca Raton. Shriver crunched Gigi Fernandez, 6-3, 6-3.

In the other quarterfinals, fourth-seeded Helena Sukova defeated seventh-seeded Bettina Bunge, 3-6, 6-3, 7-6 (7-3), and Kate Gompert, who became an overnight celebrity by defeating Chris Evert Lloyd Thursday, lost to No. 6 Gabriela Sabatini, 6-2, 6-1.

"You know, as trite as it sounds, it really is hard to come back after playing and beating a legend the day before," Gompert said.

Sukova will meet meet Sabatini in a semifinal at 2 p.m. today. The match of the tournament, however, will follow.

"I feel positive, but it's going to be tough," said Shriver, 24, the world's fifth-ranked player who has split her four matches with Graf. "I'll go out there and, hopefully, play a solid, relaxed, gutsy, go-for-it match. I've just got to buckle down and run-run-run, lunge-lunge-lunge and hope that I serve and attack well."

Graf, 17, is equally apprehensive about playing Shriver. Her level of effort has not exactly been at maximum output this week.

"I think it's going to be a very difficult match," she said. "She has improved her game very much and is playing better from the baseline. She always beats the other players very easily."

Not that Graf had too hard a time, although she created a mini-scare among the 1,000 or so spectators when she lost the first three of four games to Kohde-Kilsch, who was seeded fifth. Graf tied at three and went up the next game, 4-3. At 5-4, Kohde-Kilsch took charge and won two games in a row, serving an ace at 15-30 in the 11th game and then alternating forehand and backhand crosscourt winners. Suddenly, Graf was a game away from losing her first set in the tournament.

But Graf broke Kohde-Kilsch in the 12th game to force the tiebreaker.

"It was my only chance to stay in the match," she said. "I kept saying, 'Let's go for it.' "

The tiebreaker began with three unforced errors by Kohde-Kilsch. But even three consecutive winners to come within two points, 6-4, were not enough for the loser. Graf smashed an easy overhead forehand on the next point to win the set.

"Sometimes, it's more difficult for the other player if you just keep it in instead of hitting it hard," Graf said. "She missed some easy ones."

The next set stayed close for the first three games until Graf regained her composure and won five in a row to take the set and the match.

"I was just a little disappointed in the second set because I lost a close first one," said Kohde-Kilsch, 23, also a West German. "It was hard for me to concentrate again.

"The tiebreaker went so fast. I made it 4-6, but to win five points in a row is very hard."

Graf was relieved, but not overly happy.

"For sure, I didn't play any great tennis today, especially in the beginning," she said. "I was not concentrating enough. The early service in the first game when she broke me was a stupid, really stupid thing for me to give up. I missed some easy ones and didn't play the ball as hard as I usually do.

"You know, it's not so easy to always play good tennis. I need tomorrow for sure to play much better than I did today."

For Gompert, 24, there is no tomorrow. Sabatini, 16, played brilliantly, overwhelming her opponent with furious groundstrokes that moved Gompert like a yo-yo.

"I tried to move the ball and her around," said Sabatini, an Argentine who lives on Key Biscayne. "Everything worked today, and I feel better, more confident."

Gompert wishes she could say the same. "I just couldn't get into it because her style of play was so different," she said. "She hits so much topspin that she forced me back. Last night when I played Chris, it was pretty even-keeled and everything was kind of flat. I could get into a groove. Tonight, I didn't feel in charge."

Friday's results

(Seedings in parentheses)

SINGLES

Quarterfinals -- Helena Sukova (4) d. Bettina Bunge (7), 3-6, 6-3, 7-6 (7-3); Steffi Graf (2) d. Claudia Kohde-Kilsch (5), 7-6 (7-4), 6-2; Pam Shriver (3) d. Gigi Fernandez, 6-3, 6-3; Gabriela Sabatini (6) d. Kate Gompert, 6-2, 6-1.

DOUBLES

Quarterfinals -- Svetlana Parkhomenko-Larisa Savchenko (6) d. Elise Burgin-Rosalyn Fairbank (4), 7-5, 6-7 (8-6), 6-4; Claudia Kohde-Kilsch-Helena Sukova (1) d. Gigi Fernandez-Sharon Walsh Pete (7), 6-0, 6-0; Chris Evert Lloyd-Pam Shriver d. Bettina Bunge-Laura Gildemeister, 7-5, 0-6, 6-3.; Hana Mandlikova-Wendy Turnbull vs. Barbara Potter-Wendy White, susp., rain, with Mandlikova-Turnbull leading, 2-1.

Today's schedule

Noon, stadium court -- Completion of suspended doubles quarterfinal between Mandlikova-Turnbull vs. Potter-White.

2 p.m., stadium court -- Gabriela Sabatini (6) vs. Helena Sukova (4); Pam Shriver (3) vs. Steffi Graf (2); Svetlana Parkhomenko-Larisa Savchenko (6) vs. winner of match between Barbara Potter-Wendy White and Hana Mandlikova-Wendy Turnbull (3); Claudia Kohde-Kilsch-Helena Sukova (1) vs. Chris Evert Lloyd-Pam Shriver.
 
#4,578 ·
Actually, most of the Graf-Shriver rivalry was a horror story for Pammy.

TEEN DUEL IS SLIMS' BEST SHOT - VIRGINIA SLIMS OF FLORIDA
Sun-Sentinel
Saturday, February 21, 1987
By JIM SARNI, Staff Writer

BOCA RATON -- Don't despair. Chris Evert Lloyd may be out of the Virginia Slims of Florida but the show must go on, and it could still turn out to a dazzler.

Steffi Graf is left and Gabriela Sabatini is left, and if they both win semifinal matches today, the two most talented youngsters in the game could stage a bravura finale Sunday at The Polo Club.

Steffi-Gabby has been touted as the Rivalry of the Future. Once Martina and Chris bow out, the 17-year-old West German prodigy and the 16-year-old Argentine wonder could have the court until the year 2000.

The kids have only met three times and Graf has won three times, all in three sets. As Graf gets better with every breath and Sabatini shows strong signs of catching up, the tennis world waits for round four.

But first things first. Graf must beat Pam Shriver today and Sabatini must conquer Helena Sukova. Neither is a sure thing.

Graf and Shriver play matches that Stephen King could not imagine. The triple tiebreaker thriller at the U.S. Open in 1985 -- Graf won 7-6 (7-4), 6-7 (7-4), 7-6 (7-4) -- may have been the most gripping women's match of the decade. Graf's sensational 4-6, 7-6, 6-3 comeback victory at the Slims Championships last March wasn't for the faint of heart, either.

''We've had some wild matches,'' said Shriver, who beat Gigi Fernandez 6-3, 6-3 Friday for her third impressive victory in a row.

''I've lost some tough ones, but I also remember beating Steffi in Stuttgart (6-4, 6-3 in 1985) with the crowd rooting for me.''

The slow stadium court should favor Graf today but the West German teen-ager insists she must play better. Graf was not happy with her 7-6, 6-2 victory over West German rival Claudia Kohde-Kilsch Friday.

''I didn't play any great tennis today,'' said Graf, who rolled over Angeliki Kanellopoulou and Sara Gomer in her two previous matches, taking three love sets in a row.

But Kohde-Kilsch usually gives Graf trouble. Psychologically, it's difficult for Graf to play another German she is supposed to beat.

''Sometimes it's hard to play good tennis,'' Graf said. ''I started off with a stupid break and didn't feel so good the whole match.''

''They make a big deal about our matches at home,'' said Kohde-Kilsch, six years older than Graf.

''But I think of it as just playing another good player.''

Sabatini is 0-2 against Sukova but the slow court should favor the topspin baseliner against the aggressive Czech.

Friday night, Sabatini used her commanding strokes to overpower Kate Gompert 6-2, 6-1 and end her fairy tale.

''Trite as it sounds, it's hard to come back and play after beating a legend,'' said Gompert, the former Stanford All-America who ousted Evert Thursday night.

''My head wasn't there tonight. And Sabatini's style made it difficult for me to play. The match with Chris was on an even keel. But Sabatini uses so much topspin, she pinned me to the wall. And she's stronger than I am. She's the type of player who gives me the most trouble.''

''I felt much better after that match,'' said Sabatini, who struggled through a three-setter with Raffaella Reggi the day before.

''I like this court. Sukova will be tough. I have to keep her away from the net.''

Friday's quarterfinals

-- Steffi Graf (2) d. Claudia Kohde-Kilsch (5) 7-6, 6-2.

-- Pam Shriver (3) d. Gigi Fernandez 6-3, 6-3.

-- Helena Sukova (4) d. Bettina Bunge (7) 3-6, 6-3, 7-6.

-- Gabriela Sabatini (6) vs. Kate Gompert 6-2, 6-1

Today's semifinals

Beginning at 2 p.m.

Sabatini vs. Sukova; Shriver vs. Graf.

Doubles

Parkhomenko-Savchenko vs. winner of Mandlikova-Turnbull and Potter-White; Kohde Kilsche-Sukova vs. Evert-Shriver.
 
#4,579 ·
Slims Tennis - Graf Knocks Off Kohde-Kilsch
THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
Saturday, February 21, 1987
Associated Press

Boca Raton, Fla. -- Second-seeded Steffi Graf survived her first real challenge of the week, beating fellow West German Claudia Kohde-Kilsch, 7-6 (7-4), 6-2, yesterday to advance to the semifinals of the Virginia Slims of Florida.

In today's semifinals, Graf will play third-seeded Pam Shriver, who beat Gigi Fernandez of Puerto Rico, 6-3, 6-3, in yesterday's quarterfinals.

The other semifinal will pit fourth-seeded Helena Sukova of Czechoslovakia against the winner of last night's match pitting unseeded Kate Gompert against sixth-seeded Gabriela Sabatina of Argentina. Gompert knocked top-seed Chris Evert Lloyd out of the tournament Thursday night.

Sukova nipped seventh-seeded Bettina Bunge of Monaco 3-6, 6-3, 7-6 (7-3) in the tightest match yesterday.

After needing only 69 minutes to win her first two matches, Graf worked 80 minutes to stop fifth-seeded Kohde-Kilsch. Graf came away unhappy with her performance.

"Maybe because we are both from West Germany there is a tighter relationship," she said. "I know I'll have to play better in my next match."

The first set had plenty of dramatics. Kohde-Kilsch took a quick 3-1 lead, got caught by Graf at 4-all and broke Graf's serve in the 11th game to find herself serving at 6-5 for the set.

But Graf broke back and took 3-0 and 6-1 leads in the tie-breaker before erring on three straight set points. She saved her fourth set point with an overhead volley.

Graf dominated the second set, but Kohde-Kilsch still came away with some satisfaction.

"We wanted to have a good match," Kohde-Kilsch said. "They make a big deal out of this back in Germany."

Shriver was too strong and too experienced for Fernandez, who had dreamed of celebrating her 23rd birthday tomorrow in the final. Shriver went up 4-1 at the start and won the last three games of the match, two with service breaks.

"I was so close to running away with the match," Shriver said. "She had trouble on every service game and I missed some easy volleys."

Fernandez beat No. 8 seed Caterina Lindqvist of Sweden to reach the quarters.

"I played two great matches and one good one this week," Fernandez said. "I didn't play great against Shriver and to beat her you have to."

Sukova started badly against Bunge, who lost only five points in the first four games.

Sukova also lost service to start the second set, but rallied to send the match into a third set. She worked to a 5-2 lead in the third set and served unsuccessfully for the match three times.

Bunge broke her in a 12-point eighth game, a 10-point 10th game and at love in the 12th game after losing her own service in the 11th to set up another opportunity.

But Sukova dominated the tiebreaker, winning five straight points to lead 5-1.
 
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