TENNIS PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIPS : The Fault Is With Seles in Loss to Capriati

KEY BISCAYNE, Fla. — Top-ranked Monica Seles double-faulted on the final point and had her 27-match winning streak ended by Jennifer Capriati in Wednesday’s quarterfinals of the International Players Championships.

Capriati, ranked sixth, prevailed in a slugfest from the baseline, 6-2, 7-6 (7-5).

Seles, the defending champion, had reached the final in 21 consecutive tournaments. She had won her three previous tournaments this year and was 19-0 in matches.

After a slow start, Seles fought back into the match by winning four consecutive games to lead the second set, 5-3. Then, serving for the set, she double-faulted twice in a row, and Capriati broke her at love.

Seles led the tiebreaker, 5-4, but then hit a forehand long and a forehand wide before double-faulting.

“It’s really the first time I’ve ever double-faulted on match point,” Seles said.

“Today the shots were not there. I was not making the shots I usually do, and she was a lot better from the baseline than I was.”

Capriati, whose record against Seles improved to 2-3, was relatively subdued during a news conference after the big victory.

“That’s what I was aiming for,” she said. “I was expecting her at any time to go off and get on a roll, and she really didn’t.”

Earlier Wednesday, Steffi Graf defeated Mary Joe Fernandez in straight sets for the eighth time in as many tries, 7-6 (7-5), 6-4.

Graf advanced to a semifinal match today against third-ranked Gabriela Sabatini of Argentina, who overwhelmed Amy Frazier, 6-0, 6-1.

No. 4-seeded Arantxa Sanchez Vicario defeated unseeded Amanda Coetzer of South Africa, 6-1, 6-4. Sanchez Vicario, who has yet to lose a set in four matches, will play Capriati next.

In men’s play, ninth-ranked Michael Chang defeated No. 4 Pete Sampras, 6-4, 7-6 (7-4), and No. 1 Jim Courier got past Diego Nargiso of Italy, 6-7 (10-8), 6-2, 6-0. Nargiso is ranked No. 100.

Jakob Hlasek of Switzerland defeated Russian Andrei Cherkasov, 6-7 (7-1), 6-3, 6-4, and Alberto Mancini of Argentina beat Richard Krajicek of the Netherlands, 6-4, 6-7 (8-6), 7-5.

Friday’s semifinals will pit Courier against Chang and Hlasek against Mancini.

Fernandez is ranked seventh, but she can’t keep up with the second-ranked Graf. Two weeks ago, Fernandez won only three points in the first set of a 6-0, 7-5 loss to Graf in the Virginia Slims of Florida.

Graf hasn’t exactly rolled into the quarterfinals. In four matches, she has lost one set and gone to a tiebreaker in two others.