Capriati Gets French Lesson From Veteran : Tennis: Seles, 16, uses her experience to beat 14-year-old, 6-2, 6-2. Graf also advances to the final.

It was the end of the beginning of something big.

Jennifer Capriati, at 14 only a couple of years older than the ballgirls at Roland Garros Stadium, was beaten in the French Open semifinals Thursday by a more experienced player, one 16.

For Capriati, there is an up side to her nearly two weeks in Paris. Take eighth-grade history class, for instance.

“My teacher told me to read books, but also to go sightseeing so I can see the real stuff,” Capriati said.

In Thursday’s matches, though, women’s tennis turned a corner and started down a new street, pausing at a juvenile shop to take a peek at its new real stuff.

What exactly did people expect of Capriati’s semifinal with Monica Seles?

“I think they expected a longer match,” Capriati said.

It took Seles 62 minutes to come to the conclusion that there will be many Grand Slam finals for Capriati--just not the one that will be played Saturday.

In that one, Seles meets Steffi Graf. Capriati’s first Grand Slam ended with the worst loss of her six-week-old pro career.

Seles beat Capriati, 6-2, 6-2, and moved into a showdown with Graf, who had little trouble getting past Jana Novotna in the other semifinal, 6-1, 6-2.

For Capriati, it was a disappointing end to an otherwise faultless tournament in a young career shimmering with promise. She held serve only once in the match.

Capriati’s brightest moment might have been in the final game, when she held off five match points. Even then, she was plotting her comeback.

“I thought if I kept fighting, maybe I could win the game and the next one and that game and that game and that game and then get back into the match,” she said.

On the sixth match point, though, Capriati ended her French Open debut by chopping a forehand past the baseline where Seles stood, arms raised in triumph.

Seles was probably more relieved than anything else.

“What really impressed me today was the quality of her shots and how many balls she got back,” Seles said. “And even in the last game, she was fighting.”

She was on the defensive, though. Seles dictated play, kept Capriati pinned at the baseline most of the time and moved her from side to side with ground strokes.

Seles won the first set in 23 minutes, breaking Capriati in the first, third and fifth games. Capriati committed 23 unforced errors in the first set compared with only eight by Seles.

Service breaks littered the second set: Seles was broken twice, Capriati four times.

The key game of the match was the fifth, right after Capriati had broken Seles’ serve for 2-2. Looking for her first lead in the match, Capriati was instead broken again when Seles picked a drop shot off the dirt and stroked a winner.

Sitting beside husband Stefano in the stands, Denise Capriati, Jennifer’s mother, lowered her head. Seles won her next service game at love for 4-2, then broke Capriati at love for 5-2.

All Seles had to do to reach her first Grand Slam final was serve out the match. She began by piling up match points, then fumbling them away.

Seles, who double-faulted on one match point, committed unforced errors on two others and smacked an easy overhead into the net on yet another, was understandably concerned. Match points can bring out the worst in her, she admitted.

“A lot of times I choke,” she said. “I was lucky I pulled it out.”

Luck was of absolutely no consequence in Graf’s thrashing of Novotna in 63 minutes.

Graf won the first set in 26 minutes, closing it out with an ace. She broke the Czech in the first game of the second set and again in the third game for a 3-0 lead, only to see Novotna close to 3-2.

“I had a loss of concentration,” Graf said.

However, she did not experience a loss of match. Novotna, who is 0-7 against Graf, said she was impressed.

“She just keeps proving that she is the No. 1 player in the world,” Novotna said.

On the basis of her semifinal showing, Capriati’s ranking should become a lower number than her age. After playing only five tournaments, she is expected to be No. 13 when the new rankings come out Monday.

Losing as she did to Seles is something new for Capriati, who was 5-0 in her Grand Slam career before Thursday. Sure, she was disappointed, she said.

“I expected it to be a little closer,” Capriati said. “Yeah, it’s almost like, well, it was great for me that I could just get to the semifinals.”

A year ago, 15-year-old Seles was happy just to get to the semifinals of her first Grand Slam. She lost to Graf in three sets, but learned from the experience. Capriati will do the same, Seles said.

“You could just see she didn’t have the experience,” Seles said. “It was her first Grand Slam tournament and she’s coming into the semifinals. Like, when I was playing Steffi last year, there were a couple of points that she won just because she had more experience than I did.

“All this will happen with Jennifer, too. There’s no question she’ll be many more times in the semis and finals. I can tell you, honestly, at 14 I would never have gotten into a (Grand Slam) semifinal.”

As Capriati’s interview was winding down, she started to let a smile break up her disappointment.

She looked at her mother, grinned, then saw her mother smiling back. Denise Capriati and Stefano had stood up, smiling and clapping when Jennifer walked off the court after her first Grand Slam semifinal. They will probably do the same when she wins one.