TENNIS ROUNDUP : Krickstein, Muster Reach Final

Aaron Krickstein, the last of the seeded players in the Monte Carlo Open, moved into the final Saturday with a 6-1, 6-1 rout of Goran Prpic of Croatia at Monaco.

In today’s best-of-five final, Krickstein meets Thomas Muster of Austria, who beat Arnaud Boetsch of France, 7-5, 6-4, in the other semifinal.

Prpic took the opening game but didn’t win another until eight games later, at 2-1 in the second set.

“The first game I came out a little slow and I lost it and I was little worried,” Krickstein said. “But I broke back and went up.”

From then on, Krickstein didn’t make many errors. He lobbed confidently and passed Prpic easily when the Croatian rushed the net.

Prpic ended the match on his fourth double fault.

“He was just playing too good,” Prpic said. “He was just playing unbelievably good,” Prpic said. “If we played for three days I think I would have no chance to win a set. He was just not missing.”

Muster and Boetsch hammered it out from the baseline most of their match. Muster wasted three set points in the 10th game and needed four more before he finally won the first set.

In the second set, Muster went ahead 2-1 on another break at love, and held the break the rest of the way.

Boetsch committed twice as many unforced errors as Muster, 43-20, accounting for most of Muster’s 77 points in the match.

“Arnaud was getting tired,” Muster said. “And when you are tired you don’t have control over your legs anymore and you are not stepping into the ball that well. That is why he just missed that many balls on the frame.”

Second-seeded Arantxa Sanchez Vicario turned back Conchita Martinez, 6-1, 6-2, in an all-Spanish final in the WTA International Championships of Spain at Barcelona, but today’s final doesn’t figure to be quite so easy.

Top-ranked Monica Seles also reached the final with a 6-3, 6-1 victory over Manuela Maleeva-Fragniere of Switzerland, winning the final six games.

Seles has an 8-0 record against Sanchez Vicario.

“I think it will be a tough match,” Seles said of today’s final. “This is Arantxa’s home court, she practices here and she knows it so well. The fans love her here, too. I’ll have to play great tennis to win.”

Seles, playing her second tournament after a three-week layoff because of an injury, is going for the 25th singles title of her career.