Sanchez Vicario

NEW YORK -- Defending U.S. Open women's champion Arantxa Sanchez Vicario was upset last night by No. 14 Mary Joe Fernandez, who came on the court with her right thigh wrapped and her prospects dim.Few gave Fernandez much of a chance against No. 3 Sanchez Vicario. But it was Fernandez who showed the heart to pull out a 1-6, 6-4, 6-4 fourth-round victory.It was the earliest exit for a defending U.S. Open women's champion since 1986."I am a human being. It is impossible to always get things when you want them," said Sanchez Vicario.

NEW YORK -- It was cold on Arthur Ashe Stadium Court at the U.S. Open last night, and it took No. 5 seed Venus Williams, clad in her brief, form-fitting periwinkle and black tennis dress, a set to warm up her strokes and stoke her mind for the relentless Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario.By the time Williams took off her bright yellow warm-up jacket late in the first set, Sanchez-Vicario, the No. 4 seed, was well on her way to winning that first set.But that was all she would win.When the warm-up came off, Williams set to work and willed herself to oust the French Open champ from this tournament, 2-6, 6-1, 6-1.Sanchez-Vicario is the highest-ranked player ever beaten by Williams, who has lost to No. 1 Martina Hingis, No. 2 Jana Novotna and No. 3 Lindsay Davenport in the Australian, French and Wimbledon quarterfinals this year.

Two of the world's top-ranked women's players will be featured at the 1995 Signet Bank Tennis Challenge at the Baltimore Arena in October, tournament chairwoman Pam Shriver announced yesterday.Second-ranked Arantxa Sanchez Vicario will play No. 5 Mary Pierce, and Shriver will team with Ilie Nastase against Tracy Austin and Johan Kriek in a doubles match.Proceeds from the Tennis Challenge, presented by The Baltimore Sun, will be distributed by the Baltimore Community Foundation to children's charities.

The new stars of tennis presided over the U.S. Open last week, but someone was missing. Steffi Graf, the woman who has 21 Grand Slams to her name and is three shy of the all-time record, wasn't playing, recovering instead from June knee surgery.There had been speculation on whether Graf would return to tennis, but that seems to have been put to rest. Yesterday, in Baltimore, Pam Shriver announced that Graf will be the headliner for her annual charity event, the First Union/Signet Bank Tennis Challenge, Nov. 25 at 7 p.m., at Baltimore Arena.

WIMBLEDON, England -- In the past, grass was her opponent.Arantxa Sanchez Vicario was raised to play on red clay, but when she came to Wimbledon, all she could see was green grass, and all she could do was hang on the baseline, executing the same old shots that would bring her victories at Roland Garros in France but defeats in England.This year was different, though. She decided to beat the English grass, attacking and improvising, advancing steadily through a draw, defeating reigning champion Conchita Martinez and reaching her first Wimbledon final.

Mary Pierce is jetting in from a day of sponsor appearances in Paris, and Arantxa Sanchez Vicario is winging over on the Concorde from Spain for tonight's Signet Bank Tennis Challenge.It is the 10th year for the event at the Baltimore Arena that has earned approximately $1.5 million for children's charities. And Pam Shriver, the creator and driving force behind the event, wants this one to be special.Tonight's lineup certainly is.World No. 2 Sanchez Vicario vs. No. 4 Pierce in a three-set singles match; Ilie Nastase and Shriver against Tracy Austin and Johan Kriek in the legends mixed doubles; and Cal Ripken teamed with Sanchez Vicario against Orioles teammate Brady Anderson and Pierce in the all-star mixed doubles.

NEW YORK -- The young Martina Navratilova doesn't play a match like this. She gets up a break and seizes the moment. She piles point on top of point and leaves an opponent gasping for air.But Navratilova is 34 now, and her confidence is as fragile as her serve. She punches the air with a fist when things go well, but when she floats a second serve and misses a volley, she hangs her head in disgust.Still, she remains a factor at the U.S. Open.Yesterday, she struggled in a fourth-round match but finally defeated Manuela Maleeva-Fragniere, 7-6 (7-5)

WASHINGTON -- Women's tennis is deep. So deep. That's what women's tennis players keep saying. And yet upsets, those wonderful unexpected uprisings from the neighborhood of the lower rankings, are rarer than a cool night in August.Last night, one of those cool breezes blew through the Fitzgerald Tennis Center, but it wasn't enough to inspire overachievement.No. 1 seed Arantxa Sanchez Vicario needed just 67 minutes to dispose of Regina Rajchrtova, 6-4, 6-4, in the Virginia Slims of Washington.

NEW YORK -- A long day's wait at the National Tennis Center for her quarterfinal match to begin turned into a short night's work on Stadium Court for women's No. 2 seed Arantxa Sanchez Vicario.After lounging around the locker room for nearly eight hours waiting for the rain to stop and the courts to dry, Sanchez Vicario played just 10 minutes before her opponent, Natalia Zvereva of Belarus, retired because of illness last night.Leading 3-0, Sanchez Vicario was startled during a changeover when Zvereva put on her warm-ups, shook Sanchez Vicario's hand and told her that she was through for the night.

When Ilie Nastase hit a sweet little cross-court winner out of the reach of Tracy Austin, who will have her first child this spring, he jiggled his belly and laughed."

NEW YORK -- No. 20 Greg Rusedski was the first men's quarterfinalist to move into the U.S. Open semifinals yesterday. But few seemed to care.Many fans in Arthur Ashe Stadium left after watching a wonderful 2 1/2 -hour confrontation between No. 3 seed Jana Novotna and No. 6 Lindsay Davenport. Finally, Davenport won a third-set tiebreaker to upset her doubles partner, 6-2, 4-6, 7-6 (7-5).Davenport will now play No. 1 Martina Hingis, a 6-3, 6-2 winner over No. 10 Arantxa Sanchez Vicario for the right to meet the winner of the other semifinal between fellow American Venus Williams and Romanian Irina Spirlea in Sunday's final.

NEW YORK -- Lindsay Davenport is never going to be a pinup like Martina Hingis or Anna Kournikova. But unlike Kournikova, Davenport is still in the U.S. Open, and because Davenport is one of just two players to beat Hingis this season, she is a popular choice to win her first Grand Slam tournament.But history says the odds of her doing it are not great.Davenport, the top American-born seed at No. 6, is 21. Only one great player in the past 30 years won her first Grand Slam after her teen-age years.

NEW YORK -- Arantxa Sanchez Vicario strolled onto the National Tennis Center's old Center Court -- that is now called Court No. 2 -- looking trim, fit and ready to play.Certainly, after 12 years on tour, a little five-hour rain delay would have little impact on her game. The 78th-ranked Meilen Tu, however, forced Sanchez Vicario to play a set longer than she wanted before being able to walk off with a 6-2, 5-7, 6-2, second-round victory in the U.S. Open yesterday.Still, Sanchez Vicario and Tu were the lucky ones.

WIMBLEDON, England -- It was supposed to be the liftoff of a great tennis rivalry.Instead, yesterday's Wimbledon women's semifinal match between Martina Hingis and Anna Kournikova was a letdown.They played like a pair of scared 16-year-olds.Still, No. 1-ranked Hingis emerged with a 6-3, 6-2 victory over Kournikova to move into tomorrow's women's final, where she'll face No. 3 Jana Novotna.Novotna cleared the semifinals by beating former doubles partner Arantxa Sanchez Vicario, 6-4, 6-2.The Hingis-Kournikova match was filled with hope and possibility.

NEW YORK -- Jana Novotna. You remember her. The woman who never seems able to win the really big ones. The one who blew a 4-1 lead in the final set at Wimbledon, the one who hasn't been to the finals of a major tournament since.You remember her. But last night, in the quarterfinals of the Chase Championships at Madison Square Garden, you wouldn't have recognized her.No. 5 seed Novotna captivated everyone, as she upset No. 2-ranked Arantxa Sanchez Vicario, 6-0, 6-3."Does it look to you like I'm playing the best tennis of my life?"

NEW YORK -- Martina Hingis stepped onto the Stadium Court at the U.S. Open yesterday and captured the fans' imagination.Was it Hingis, the 15-year-old from Switzerland named for Martina Navratilova, giving the geometry lesson from the baseline, or was it Chris Evert all over again?It was a question to ponder as Hingis guided her forehands down the line and constructed points the way Evert used to, using four and five shots to build her way to an acute-angled winner.Her method worked superbly as she overcame her own emotions to beat the more experienced, No. 3 Arantxa Sanchez Vicario, 6-1, 3-6, 6-4, to move into the quarterfinals of a Grand Slam tournament for the first time.

WASHINGTON -- The Arantxa Sanchez Vicario express made a stop here last night without being derailed.The third-ranked player in the world used powerful ground strokes and some untimely unforced errors from Mary Joe Fernandez to win, 6-2, 6-4, on the second night of the Elizabeth Arden Women's Tennis Association Challenge at the William H. G. FitzGerald Tennis Center.In the second match, No. 12 Manuela Maleeva-Fragniere of Switzerland rallied from a set down and beat No. 23 Lori McNeil of Houston, 2-6, 6-3, 6-4.The four players were half of eight top-ranked players in the world who took part in the team competition.

NEW YORK -- At the age of 27, Steffi Graf is at the top of her game and one of the best players in tennis history. At 15, Anna Kournikova is just beginning.Today, they will meet on the Stadium Court at the U.S. Open in a match that could be one of the biggest mismatches of the tournament or one of the first matches to showcase what is and what is about to be.Graf, the No. 1 player in the world and the No. 1 Open seed, issurrounded by a mystique built on her ability to survive. An athletic woman who has proven her iron will and her talent many times, she is again challenged by a test of mental fortitude.

WIMBLEDON, England -- The Wimbledon Championships were put right yesterday by a hacking woman playing wondrous tennis.No. 1 seed Steffi Graf, the only player, man or woman, to live up to her ranking during this fortnight, overcame a cough, sniffles and Arantxa Sanchez Vicario to win a seventh singles title on Wimbledon's Centre Court lawn."