| | A trio of uplifting
showings
Posted: Thu September 3,
1998 
Sports Illustrated staff writer Jon Wertheim will report frequently from Flushing Meadows during the U.S.
Open.
For all the talk of the changing face of tennis, Wednesday
was marked by three players in the throes of comebacks.
Steffi
Graf, clearly rankled by the teen sensations who have pilfered
her limelight, is trying to reclaim her top spot. She moved
a step closer with a 6-0, 6-1 thrashing of
Marlene
Weingartner that recalled the player who has won 21 career Grand Slam
titles, not the one who lost to
Magui
Serna 11 days ago at the du Maurier. A qualifier who also hails
from Germany, Weingartner had a low threshold for awe,
succumbing to Graf in 42 minutes, while often prancing
around the court wearing a "I can't believe I'm
here" expression on her face. Graf,
who is seeded eighth despite being ranked in the
mid-twenties, has now won 16 straight matches at the Open
and hasn't fallen out of the groove since beating
Lindsay
Davenport and
Jana
Novotna last week to win the Pilot Pen.
Martina
Hingis may have dismissed Graf as "history," but a poll
of the women's locker room would reveal that most players
would rather face Hingis than the 29-year-old Fraülein
Forehand these next two
weeks.
A year ago
Michael
Chang had the chance to become the world No.1 player and end
talk of his unfulfilled career by winning the Open. Instead
he lost in the semifinals to
Pat
Rafter and began an ugly spiral. "Sometimes I think people
have forgotten my name," Chang says. Going more than a
year without winning a tournament, his ranking dropped
below 20 for the first time in a decade and his confidence
plummeted much further. Chang
has been beset by injuries—including a partial tear of
the MCL in his right knee when he slipped on a wet court at
Indian Wells in March—but it also took him an awfully
long time to recover from the disappointment of squandering
the chance to be No. 1. At
long last, the most indefatigable player on tour is
starting to come off the respirator. He ended his
tournament drought by capturing the MFS Pro Championship in
Boston last weekend and he looked like his old, solid self
in his first-round flogging of
Eyal
Erlich. Never hobbled by ego, Chang concedes that he could be
overlooked here. If he takes out his next opponent,
10th-seeded
Carlos
Moya, his draw opens and folks will start remembering his name
real
quick.
The most heartening renaissance, however, was played out on
Center Court.
Petr
Korda figured he had an easy first-round opponent in
Bernd
Karbacher, a 29-year-old journeyman who saw his ranking drop to
nether regions after a ruptured heart muscle forced him off
the tour. Though he considered retiring, Karbacher, with
his doctor's blessing, decided to give tennis one last
go-round. Forced to
qualify for the main draw over the weekend, Karbacher looked like
a beaten man as he dropped the first set and went down 0-2
in the second. Then, as he put it, "I started to think
if I keep playing scared, I will get killed." Leaving
no doubt as to the state
of his heart, Karbacher turned the match around and permitted
Korda only four more games all day, scoring the biggest
upset of the tournament so far, 2-6, 6-3, 6-2, 6-1.
"This is obviously a great day for me," said
Karbacher, who, in a previous tennis
incarnation, had beaten
Pete
Sampras and cracked the top 25. As for Korda, he was the picture
of despondency after getting bounced from yet another
tournament since winning his first and only Grand Slam
earlier this year in Australia. "Mentally I am
tired," said the scissors-kick
impresario who hinted at retirement. "I need to leave the game
of tennis for a while and spend some time with my
family." If it's any consolation, he should be able to
draw plenty of inspiration for a
comeback.
VOLLEYS: In the day's "Don't-I-know-you-from-somewhere?"
match,
Byron
Black and
Alex
O'Brien defeated
Wayne
Black and
Sebastien
Lareau. Not only are the Blacks brothers, but O'Brien and Lareau
used to the be one of the better doubles teams on tour ...
After alleging that she left Croatia to seek refuge from
her physically abusive father,
Mirjana
Lucic made it to the third round. Though she looks considerably,
uh, less fit than she has in the past, Lucic dominated
Naoko
Sawamatsu in the third set. Next up, Graf ... To the Chicken Littles
who lament the dearth of U.S. players: 11 American men and
14 American women advanced to the second round ... Asked
what would have happened had
Irina
Spirlea bumped her as she did her sister,
Venus, last year,
Serena
Williams responded: "I wouldn't be allowed on the WTA
Tour." By the way, Spirlea and Serena meet in the
third round ... The fast-starter award goes to
Dominique Van
Roost, who has dropped just four games in her first two matches
... Rest assured the vendors at the Open are equal
opportunity gougers. A tuna sandwich at the glatt kosher
food stand goes for
$8.25.
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