TENNIS ROUNDUP : No Party for Sabatini After Birthday

Anke Huber upset second-seeded Gabriela Sabatini, 7-5, 6-3, Friday in the third round of the Lufthansa Cup in Berlin, spoiling a promoter’s dream final of Sabatini and No. 1 Steffi Graf.

Sabatini’s loss came the day after she was given a day off to celebrate her 21st birthday.

“Anke played excellent tennis and hit nearly everything,” Sabatini said. “It surely wasn’t one of my better days.”

She refused to blame her birthday celebration. “I went to bed early, I didn’t celebrate too much,” she said.

Huber, ranked 22nd in the world, said, “I still can’t believe it. I simply hit everything today. This the biggest success of my career.”

Ranked third, Sabatini came into the clay-court event with five tournament victories this year, including one in last week’s Italian Open.

But she suffered her third loss when she was unable to match Huber’s powerful shots that kept Sabatini from approaching the net.

Huber, 16, is regarded in Germany as a successor to Graf.

In other matches, 15-year-old Jennifer Capriati defeated Natalia Zvereva of the Soviet Union, 6-2, 6-3, but another American, third-seeded Mary Joe Fernandez, was upset by Julie Halard of France, 6-0, 5-7, 6-3.

Halard will play Capriati, the seventh seed, in the quarterfinals today.

Huber’s quarterfinal opponent will be fourth-seeded Arantxa Sanchez Vicario of Spain, who beat Nicole Provis of Australia, 6-1, 6-1.

Goran Prpic rallied to defeat Andrei Cherkasov, 7-6 (7-3), 7-5, at the Italian Open in Rome and set up a semifinal match with Emilio Sanchez, who has yet to lose a set in the tournament.

Sanchez, seeded ninth, reached the semifinals with a 6-2, 6-2 victory over Australian Richard Fromberg.

“I’m pretty happy with my play today,” Sanchez said. “Usually I have my ups and downs. But my level has been high for the entire week.”

Prpic, who will play Sanchez today, fought back from a breakdown in both sets against his Soviet opponent.

“I’m feeling better than I did yesterday,” said Prpic, a Yugoslav, who rallied Thursday to eliminate defending champion Thomas Muster of Austria, 3-6, 6-3, 6-2.

“Yesterday, I was already tired halfway through the first set,” Prpic said. “Last night I took a hot bath. It was fun out there today.”

In other matches, Alberto Mancini defeated fellow Argentine Horacio De La Pena, 6-4, 6-2, in another quarterfinal. Mancini will play No. 5 Sergi Bruguera, who defeated 19-year-old Frenchman Fabrice Santoro, 6-4, 7-6 (7-1), in a late match.

Notre Dame’s top doubles team of David DiLucia and Chuck Coleman defeated Chris Walker and Craig Wildey of Kansas in a clinching match, sending the Fighting Irish into the second round of the NCAA tournament against top-ranked USC in Athens, Ga.

DiLucia and Coleman, ranked No. 5 nationally, beat the eighth-ranked Walker and Wildey, 7-6 (7-2), 6-2, as Notre Dame eliminated the Jayhawks, 5-2, in the first-round match.

In other matches on the tournament’s first day, South Carolina beat Oklahoma State, 5-2; Texas Christian defeated Harvard, 5-1; and Mississippi State eliminated New Mexico, 5-3.