Fernandez Sees More Unseating of the Seeded

Mary Joe Fernandez, one of the better and brighter young women on the professional tennis tour, said here Friday that it is getting more difficult for seeded players to cruise through Grand Slam tournaments.

Many say that the Women’s Tennis Assn. lacks depth, that only a few players have a real chance of winning the tournaments.

But Fernandez’s theory might get more attention, at least at the French Open, where sixth-seeded Fernandez fell to No. 42 Sabine Hack of Germany, 7-6 (7-1), 6-2, and eighth-seeded Manuela Maleeva-Fragniere was ousted by No. 57 Manon Bollegraf of the Netherlands on Friday. Neither Hack nor Bollegraf had previously reached the fourth round of a Grand Slam event.

However, some of the other top women breezed in third-round matches. Second-seeded Steffi Graf of Germany defeated Amanda Coetzer of South Africa, 6-2, 6-1. Graf, a two-time winner here, took 59 minutes to win, and has not lost more than three games in a set in her three matches here. Fourth-seeded Arantxa Sanchez Vicario of Spain defeated Judith Wiesner of Austria, 6-3, 6-1.

Fernandez, 20, of Miami, Fla., was leading in the first set, 5-3, when her game fell apart.

“I didn’t feel real comfortable out there,” she said.

Fernandez had defeated Hack twice, once in last year’s French Open. But Hack tried a new approach, hitting the ball with a lot of topspin, and that kept Fernandez from moving in.

“She lost her mind,” Hack said.

Fernandez, usually a steady player, started making unforced errors and could not recover.

“It’s just tougher (now),” Fernandez said. “There aren’t any easy matches, like there used to be.”