From: prakash@cs.mcgill.ca (Prakash Panangaden)
Subject: Re: Canadian Open - women's title
Keywords: tennis,canada,monica,seles,arantxa,vicario
Organization: SOCS, McGill University, Montreal, Canada
Distribution: na
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1992 18:37:45 GMT

Sorry this is so late but our systems have been down a lot.

Report of Seles vs Sanchez-Vicario final in Montreal.

Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario finally beat Seles after 10 failures.  The match
was very exciting and quite well played though there were several
uncharacteristic Seles errors.  In the first set Sanchez pressed from the
start.  She played with great confidence and smacked Monica's hardest
groundstrokes back.  She was able to vary the pace beautifully, sometimes
matching Monica's power but often content to just move her around until she
had an opportunity to attack.  She did attack early and often principally
by coming into the net or tossing in a delightfully subtle drop shot.
Monica's occasional drop shot attempts were laughable by comparison.
Monica often missed the lines and thereafter stayed away from them and was
content to rely on sheer power.  Arantxa broke twice in the first set and
was broken once.  Monica did hit two great aces and some scintillating
winning groundstrokes but the set belonged to Arantxa 6-4.  I think Arantxa
had 8 drop shot winners in this set.

In the second set Monica played more consistently and explored the
sidelines a bit more.  Arantxa was broken twice [I think] and started
making more errors.  However, at no stage did Monica look overwhelming.
She hit with power and perhaps having to deal with this pace caused some of
Arantxa's errors but the occasional brilliant shot usually came from
Arantxa.  She managed to run into the teeth of Monica's best groundstrokes
and hit them back with authority.  Monica tried to come in from time to
time but looked quite inept every time.  Nevertheless she played to win and
even the slightest drop in the level of Arantxa's game was enough for Seles
to claim the set.  Arantxa's drop shots were not so good this set.  She
tried a couple early on and Seles generally got to them.

The third set was a wonderful exhibition of the power of momentum.  There
were three distinct phases.  First Arantxa ran off to a 3-0 lead.  Then
Monica won 4 in a row to lead 4-3 up a break and then Arantxa took the last
three.  It was wonderful for the spectators ebcause they played really well
right to the end.  Arantxa had every reason to give up after a charging
Seles went up 4-3.  Instead she played the best tennis I have ever seen
from her to close out the set.  She hit backcourt winners off the awesome
Seles forehand, she rushed in any volleyed off deep approach shots and she
really ticked off Seles with yet more perfect drop shots.  In all Arantxa
had 11 drop shot winners and set up maybe another dozen winners behind a
drop shot.  Even in the last game it was very exciting because Seles had
0-30 to tie at 5-5 but Arantxa came through with 4 straight pointsto win 
the set 6-4 and the match 6-4, 3-6, 6-4.

I would rate this as my 5th favourite women's match ever.  The other's were
1970 Wimbledon Final [Court beat King 14-12 11-9, in "straight sets", alas
I only heard this over the radio on BBC world service], 1981 US Open Semis
[Navratilova beat Evert, 7-5, 5-7, 6-4], 1992 French Open final, and the
1989 Wimbledon Final [no they are not in order of preference].


The crowd was strongly for Arantxa though Seles had about 30% of the crowd
(including me) behind her.  Arantxa gave her acceptance speech in French,
which is as delightfully fractured as her English, but she speaks 6
languages [English, French, Spanish, Italian, Catalan and German] so who am
I to criticize.  Monica seems to me quite vulnerable.  Her power is still
there but any time her accuracy is off, she is beatable.  Also I do not
think she has the brilliant variety that Arantxa showed herself capable of.

Has anyone noticed Arantxa volleying frequently before?  She is the second
fastest around the court, after Graf, and can hit with power when it suits
her.  Look for her to upset someone in the US Open.  I predict Capriati
will eat Monica for breakfast at the quarters of the US Open and that she
will go on to win it all.

Prakash
Newsgroups: rec.sport.tennis