Capriati Puts Game Together in Time to Win : Tennis: Top-seeded player rallies to defeat Huber and earn a berth in Mazda Classic championship against Martinez.

The finish forgave the false start.

For the second consecutive day, second-seeded Jennifer Capriati started like a slug, slowly picked up the pace and ended her performance in near perfection.

In the opening semifinal of the Mazda Tennis Classic on Saturday afternoon, Capriati took a 7-6 (8-6), 3-6, 6-1 victory over Germany’s Anke Huber.

Spain’s Conchita Martinez won her semifinal against Leila Meskhi, 3-6, 7-6 (7-5), 6-2, in front of a sellout crowd of 5,200 at the La Costa Resort & Spa, to set the stage for today’s 11 a.m. championship.

Capriati of Saddlebrook, Fla., ranked sixth in the world, hopes to avoid following the pattern of her last two matches, in which she fell behind each time.

Against Huber, she must have heard what her bevy of fans--the majority of those in attendance--was thinking.

Not again . . .

Visions of Friday all over, when Capriati lost four consecutive games before she dismissed Zina Garrison, 6-4, 6-4.

But could Capriati afford to spot Huber, who played as well or better than anyone all week, that same four-game lead and not have it come back and burn her?

“Against a top player you can’t afford to do that, because maybe you’re not going to get lucky enough to come back,” Capriati said. “The really top players will probably close me out.”

Fourth-seeded Huber is getting there, but she let Capriati off the hook. The 11th-ranked German dropped the next four games, including one on serve that she led, 40-5.

“I think I wanted it a little bit too much at this point,” said Huber, 17. “I had a lot of chances to win the first set.”

Said Capriati: “She was playing extremely well; she came out blazing in those four games, hitting her shot well and deep, keeping me on the baseline and moving me from side to side.”

But Capriati did a little moving of her own and won the next four games.

At 4-4, the players exchanged service breaks, then held their serves to go into the tiebreaker.

Capriati jumped to a 4-2 lead that Huber evened when the Olympic gold medalist hit long twice. Then Huber went up 5-4 on a Capriati backhand that landed wide.

It looked as if Huber had double set point when she slammed a backhand down the line, but it was called wide. At 6-6, Capriati hit a volley winner and Huber sent a shot long to give the American the first set.

“It was really bad,” Huber said of the officiating, “but for both sides.”

Huber broke serve twice and took the second set easily--it was the first set she has won from Capriati--but Capriati came out in the third with a determination she previously lacked.

“I didn’t feel I was in control the whole match before that,” Capriati said. “In the beginning, when I took the 3-0 lead, I kind of felt things starting to go my way.”

There was little Huber--now 0-3 against Capriati--could do to keep Capriati off-balance. Huber wasn’t sub-par as much as Capriati was flawless.

“I started playing a lot better, starting being more aggressive, not making as many errors,” Capriati said.

Huber was impressed with Capriati’s play in the final set, where only two games went to deuce: one that Huber won and the final game, where Huber held off two match points.

On third match point, Capriati advanced to defend her Mazda Classic title when she hit the winning backhand volley on the run.

“I think she played unbelievable in the third set,” Huber said. “I couldn’t do anything. I didn’t miss many balls, I didn’t played very bad. She just played very good.”

But about that slow start . . .

Capriati would like to rid herself of the lethargic start. With the U.S. Open beginning Monday, today is as good a time as any.

“I don’t like it when it happens,” she said. “In mostly all my matches, either I’m down in the beginning or then I’m up and I’ll lose my concentration and get down in a hole.”

Early in the week, Capriati said she welcomed a tough match to better prepare for the Open, but she would have passed on the 2-hour, 4-minute session with Huber.

“I wouldn’t have minded an easier match, but this is fine. It’s just getting me in that tough match mode,” she said.

Her Olympic victory might have heightened other people’s expectations of Capriati, but not her own.

“I’m not putting that kind of pressure on myself,” she said. “I don’t even think of that.”

But she does expect more of herself, based largely on her performance in last year’s Open, where she reached the semifinals.

“I expect more from myself, even if I hadn’t won the Olympics, but just from last year,” she said. “If I could do that last year, and I came pretty close like I did, then I expect myself to get closer and closer.”

It wasn’t close last year when Martinez, who won an Olympic silver medal in doubles with countrywoman Arantxa Sanchez Vicario, suffered a foot injury and lost to Capriati in the semifinals here, 6-4, 6-0.

Capriati has a 2-1 edge in head-to-head meetings, Martinez taking a 6-3, 6-3 victory in the round of 16 at the French Open last year.

Martinez said she was bothered by some tendons in her right arm against Meskhi, but said that passiveness, not pain, was her biggest problem.

“I should try to play more active,” Martinez said “Sometimes it helps if I get angry.”

In the first game of the third set, Martinez objected to a call that went against her, lost the game, but won the six that followed.

Martinez said she will simply try to play her best against Capriati, but Meskhi said she likes Martinez’s chances.

“I think (Jennifer) will have trouble hitting her high balls,” Meskhi said. “I think it will be a good match.”

Tennis Notes

NBC gets no brownie points for its live broadcast of the Jennifer Capriati-Anke Huber match. With Capriati leading 3-0 in the third set, NBC switched from tennis to the men’s pro beach volleyball U.S. Open at Hermosa Beach. The team of Bud Collins and Chris Evert apologized profusely to its audience. “It’s a terrible disservice to tennis fans,” Collins said. At least it wasn’t in the middle of a tiebreaker.