TENNIS / LA COSTA TOURNAMENT : Quentrec Has Good Win, Now Needs Good Luck

Karine Quentrec had only a few moments to savor her first-round victory in the $375,000 Mazda tennis tournament Monday at La Costa.

Quentrec, 19, of Marseille, France, had beaten Lupita Novelo of Ensenada, 6-3, 6-3, when a tournament official said to her, “Good luck against Steffi.”

That would be Steffi Graf, the top-ranked women’s player in the world, who will play Quentrec tonight after drawing a bye in the first round.

Quentrec laughed off her seemingly impossible situation.

“I didn’t know anything about it until then,” she said. “When that man told me, ‘Good luck against Steffi,’ I thanked him. He was nice.

“But you know when people say that, they think you’re going to lose. I’m pretty sure about that, too, but I always have a chance.

“It’s a great tournament, and this is a great place. I’d prefer to play against another player. Still, that’s OK.”

Quentrec, ranked 86th in the world and unseeded here, has played Graf twice. Graf beat her in 1988 at Wimbledon, 6-2, 6-0, and in 1989 at the European Indoor tournament, 6-2, 6-3.

Asked what her strategy might be against Graf, Quentrec said: “I can serve-and-volley and I can play baseline, but I’ll stay mostly on the baseline. That’s my game. You have to play your game. You can’t play another game.

“I have to serve well, for sure, and I have to handle her first serve. You want to play really better against her, but sometimes it’s not possible.

“She has more confidence than other players, and confidence is the difference. That’s why she’s No. 1.”

Quentrec is on a comeback trail after undergoing operations on her right wrist in 1991 and ’92. She was ranked as high as 40th before being injured, and started this season No. 97.

“I didn’t play for 15 months,” she said. “I tried to play last year, but I had to stop in my first match. The pain was so bad that I couldn’t take a fork to eat what I had on my plate. When the weather is bad, my wrist still doesn’t feel right.”

Quentrec appeared on her way to a 6-0 second set against Novelo, but two service breaks shaved her lead from 4-0 to 4-3. Then she broke Novelo’s serve and wrapped up the match.

“I got more relaxed,” Quentrec said. “I was getting too tight.”

Ros Fairbank-Nideffer of Escondido, seeded 16th, overcame a 4-1 deficit in the second set to eliminate Isabelle Demongeot of Gassin, France, 6-2, 7-5.

“It wasn’t as bad as it looked,” Fairbank-Nideffer said. “I was down only one break, so I kept telling myself I’d be able to come back.”

The two other seeded women who played Monday also won. Naoko Sawamatsu of Japan, No. 9, beat Kathy Rinaldi of Amelia Island, Fla., 6-3, 6-1, and Natalia Medvedeva of the Ukraine, No. 15, beat Maria Jose Gaidano of Argentina, 7-6 (7-3), 6-4.