TENNIS / WOMEN AT SAN DIEGO : Seles-Capriati Would Be Quite an Exhibition

Monica Seles and Jennifer Capriati remain on course for a dream teen final in the Mazda Tennis Classic.

Top-seeded Seles, 17, breezed past Anne Minter of Australia, 6-0, 6-3, and fourth-seeded Capriati, 15, and Capriati had an unexpectedly easy time with Lori McNeil, 6-2, 6-1, Thursday night.

Capriati beat Seles for the championship of an exhibition in Mahwah, N.J., two weeks ago, but Seles says the Mahwah tournament doesn’t mean anything.

“It was an exhibition,” she said. “That’s a different thing, I think, than playing in a (sanctioned) tournament. But I have tough matches left and so does she.

“I think it would be a great final. No question.”

The McNeil match was Capriati’s first singles match since playing in the Federation Cup Sunday in England. There were no signs of rust--it took her only 53 minutes to polish off McNeil.

“I needed the days off,” Capriati said. “It’s a long trip from England and I needed the rest.”

She broke five of McNeil’s seven service games and was never in trouble. She won the first five games of the first set and lost only the fourth game in the second.

There wasn’t much more Capriati could have done to dominate.

“Maybe I could have made a couple of more first serves, or come to the net more,” she said.

On the other hand, McNeil, who has won two tournaments this year, made several unforced errors. In the sixth game of the second set, for example, she double-faulted twice in three attempts--the second coming on game-point.

“I was making far too many mistakes,” McNeil said. “And I was struggling with my serves, especially during the second set. It became frustrating to me to even stay in the match. . . .

“I think my mistakes stood out more than her great shots.”

Capriati’s match today against Zina Garrison has an added twist--the two are doubles partners this week. They also have differing viewpoints on this afternoon’s match.

“It’s hard playing people you like or are friends with, especially your doubles partner,” Capriati said. “But you’ve got to block that out.”

Garrison, a 6-2, 6-1 winner over France’s Karine Quentrec on Thursday, doesn’t foresee a problem.

“We’re both very competitive people,” she said. “We’re going to be out there fighting to the end.”

Like Capriati, Seles’ day was interrupted by a brief tennis match. Seles didn’t even bother to feign interest afterward.

“It was a pretty easy match,” she acknowledged.

The first set took only 22 minutes as Seles won 13 of the final 15 games.

She shook off a brief lapse in the second set.

“The hardest thing was, in the second set when I was up, 2-0, getting my mind to concentrate,” Seles said. “I missed a ball I shouldn’t have missed and kind of collapsed after that.”

Tournament Notes

Fifth-seeded Zina Garrison’s match against Karine Quentrec was in the early afternoon, and Garrison was still feeling the effects of a long doubles match that went late into the night Wednesday. Garrison and Capriati defeated Akiko Kijimuta and Naoko Sawamatsu, 4-6, 7-5, 6-2, and Garrison said that early in her match against Quentrec, all she was trying to do was survive. “I felt a little sluggish,” Garrison said. “I kind of had a hard time waking up this morning. The doubles match was tough. I was happy just to get out of it.” Garrison, 27, said she thinks she should be ranked higher than 11th in the world. “I just feel I’m better than 11th,” she said. “I can’t pinpoint that I should be here or I should be there.”

The top-seeded doubles team of Gigi Fernandez and Nathalie Tauziat defeated Erika De Lone and Sarah Loosemore, 6-0, 6-1. De Lone, an 18-year-old from Lincoln, Mass., will leave the women’s tour this fall to enroll at Harvard. She was accepted into Harvard last fall but delayed starting college because she wanted to first spend a year on the tennis tour.