Steffi Graf will face Martina Hingis in the French Open Championship final at Roland Garros tomorrow, both players winning their semi-finals in contrasting fashion yesterday. Hingis barely mustered a canter against a disappointing Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario, while Graf outlasted Monica Seles in three largely error ridden sets.
There was little doubt that the large crowd on Court Central had come to see the clash between the five times French champion and Seles, three times a winner at Roland Garros. As is so often the case, the match failed to justify the hype. Tension aplenty, but a cornucopia of errors, exacerbated by the stormy conditions.
Seles in particular seemed to suffer more acutely as the wind gusted, primarily because her footwork was nowhere near as fluent as Graf's. A minute change of direction or angle was enough to see Seles reach for the ball one-handed rather than moving her feet. It is a point she conceded afterwards: "It was very windy, very gusty out there. I had chances and the match came down to one or two points.
"I played way too defensively when it mattered. My groundstrokes were not as good as they should have been." Graf smiled her way through the press conference. "I'm delighted to be in the final. It was a tough, close match. I took risks when I needed to and I'm happy with the way that I closed out the game."
The former world number one will contest a Grand Slam final for the first time since the US Open in 1996. She deserved her success, adapting better to the wind and heavy court conditions and was particularly successful in employing the drop shot as a favoured option - Seles looked at times as if she would have struggled to get there on the third bounce.
Seles raced into a 3-0 lead, breaking in the second game on a Graf double fault. The German though won the next three as the pair traded mistakes, and the set eventually went to the tie-break which Seles won 7-2 with arguably her most assured tennis of the match. Even then one felt that Graf, if she could eliminate the number of errors on her backhand slice, could wrest control. This she accomplished, racing into a 4-1 lead in the second, saving two break points at 4-2, before taking the set 6-3 in 36 minutes. When Graf broke in the opening game of the third it appeared that her momentum would prove irresistible, but Seles settled for one final assault, which she accomplished in the fourth game following three break points.
The Yugoslav-born American though became tentative and as a result handed back the initiative. Graf scented the uncertainty and in the ninth game broke in convincing fashion: she conceded just a single point when serving out for the set and the match.
Hingis was not troubled against a surprisingly error prone Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario in her 6-3, 6-2 success. The Spaniard only occasionally demonstrated the qualities that had seen her win a third French Open title against Seles last year. Too often Sanchez-Vicario resorted to wild and subsequently wayward groundstrokes in an effort to force her opponent behind the baseline.
In contrast, the Swiss teenager invariably chose the right moment to switch the point of attack, forcing Sanchez-Vicario wide and then exploiting the wide open court. The groundstrokes of Hingis carried the greater sting and this meant that her opponent often returned the ball short, the punishment often ruthless.
Sanchez-Vicario tried to slow down the pace of the game using her heavy topspin forehand, but Hingis simply stepped in to take the ball early or on a couple of occasions volleyed the ball mid-court and followed into the net. Allowed to dictate the pace of the game, the world number one was rarely discommoded. Given that Hingis has won 10 of 11 meetings between the two - Sanchez-Vicario's only success was the first time they met - it is hardly surprising that she enjoys these encounters. She explained: "I think we have a similar game, but I have the better shots, the better technique. Everyone knows that her forehand is a weakness, but you have to be able to take advantage of it.
"I think I like players like her anyway who give me time to do something on court. With her I always get some kind of rhythm even if it's tiring." Hingis was forthright in whom she would like to play in the final - two hours later she would get her wish. "I pretty much prefer to play Steffi, because I lost to Monica last year and I think she plays well here.
"Everyone knows her (Steffi's) strengths. She has a powerful baseline game and the sliced backhand is very deep and low. She is a player that gives you time to do something on clay."
Women's Singles - semi-finals (prefix number denotes seeding): (1) M Hingis (Swi) bt (7) A Sanchez-Vicario (Spa) 6-3 6-2; (6) S Graf (Ger) bt (3) M Seles (USA) 6-7 (2-7) 6-3 6-4.
