TENNIS ROUNDUP : Capriati Polishes Off Rusty Seles, 6-3, 7-5

Top-ranked Monica Seles took five weeks off and paid the price Sunday in the final of the Pathmark Tennis Classic at Mahwah, N.J.

Seles was beaten by Jennifer Capriati, 6-3, 7-5, in a 70-minute match that clearly showed the No. 1 player is far from being in top form even though the tournament is classified as an exhibition.

“I didn’t expect a lot out of myself coming in here,” said Seles, who is recovering from a stress fracture and shin splints in her left leg that kept he out of Wimbledon. “I really didn’t want to put any pressure on the leg.”

Seles was broken five times in 10 service games. Her shots lacked crispness and she said she didn’t seem to have her usual court quickness.

The 15-year-old Capriati had a lot to do with Seles’ problems, playing almost flawlessly in handing the 17-year-old Seles her first defeat since she dropped the final of the Italian Open to Gabriela Sabatini.

Top-seeded Andre Agassi overcame 107-degree on-court temperatures and won the Sovran Bank Classic for the second year in a row by defeating Petr Korda of Czechoslovakia, 6-3, 6-4.

Agassi, the world’s sixth-ranked player, breezed through the tournament without losing a set in five matches to earn $77,000.

Mary Joe Fernandez struggled in the heat and humidity while losing to Rosalyn Fairbank-Nideffer, 1-6, 7-5, 6-0, in the final of the Virginia Slims Hall of Fame Invitational at Newport, R.I.

Fernandez was hospitalized briefly for heat exhaustion.

Wimbledon champion Michael Stich of Germany beat Alberto Mancini of Argentina, 1-6, 7-6 (11-9), 6-4, 6-2, to win the Mercedes Cup, a $1-million clay-court event at Stuttgart, Germany.

* OLYMPIC TENNIS: Martina Navratilova and Gabriela Sabatini will be ineligible for the 1992 Barcelona Games and Monica Seles also could be barred for skipping the Federation Cup. C18