TENNIS INTERNATIONAL PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIPS : Seles’ Rally Beats a Tired Capriati; Agassi Loses

Andre Agassi struggled from the start. Jennifer Capriati faded at the finish.

Both lost Wednesday at the International Players Championships.

The fourth-ranked Agassi was eliminated in the fourth round by unseeded David Wheaton, 6-0, 7-5. Agassi, who had narrowly averted upsets in his first two matches, said he simply didn’t play well.

“I tried to bear down, hoping that somehow he might lose the match,” Agassi said. “But I knew there was no way I was going to win it from him.”

Capriati, 14, gave top-ranked Monica Seles a scare in their quarterfinal match before tiring and losing, 2-6, 6-1, 6-4.

“You have to fight your guts out in a match like this,” Capriati said. “I wanted it. I just think maybe she had a little more energy than I did.”

Seles advanced to today’s semifinals against fourth-seeded Mary Joe Fernandez, who beat wild-card Ginger Helgeson, 6-1, 6-0. Top-seeded Steffi Graf and No. 3 Gabriela Sabatini will play in the other semifinal.

Wheaton’s victory over Agassi, the defending champion, left No. 1 Stefan Edberg and No. 7 Emilio Sanchez as the top-seeded men’s players from the original 96-man field.

Wheaton, ranked No. 46, advanced to a quarterfinal match today against Cristiano Caratti of Italy, who beat Sergi Bruguera of Spain, 6-7 (7-4), 6-3, 7-6 (7-3).

Jim Courier, the highest-seeded player in his half of the bracket at No. 13, needed 52 minutes to rout Derrick Rostagno, 6-0, 6-3. Courier will play Friday against Richey Reneberg, who beat Marc Rosset of Switzerland, 7-6 (7-3), 3-6, 6-3.

The Seles-Capriati match took nearly two hours, and the 17-year-old Yugoslavian clearly had more energy at the end. Capriati won only one point in the final two games and made three unforced errors in the last game.

“One point would be so tiring, I had no energy left for the next point,” Capriati said.

She wasn’t the only weary one. Seles admitted to gasping for air.

“I was getting tired physically, and mentally, too,” she said. “I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t close out the match.”

Capriati has climbed to No. 11 in the rankings in about a year as a professional. But she’s 0-10 against the four highest-ranked players--Seles, Graf, Martina Navratilova and Sabatini.

“Last year, getting that close was good for me,” Capriati said. “This year, my goal is to beat some of these top players and to forget about coming close.”

Agassi is looking forward to better days too. His record this year is 6-4, with the defeats coming against Wheaton, Courier, Brad Gilbert and Christian Saceanu.

“There’s a bigger problem than losing, and that’s just feeling good about my game,” Agassi said. “I’m hoping by the French Open I can have things the way I’d like them.”