U.S. OPEN / OTHER MATCHES : Capriati Makes a First-Round Exit

If the world of professional tennis does, indeed, eat its young, then there appeared to be one large bite taken from 17-year-old Jennifer Capriati at the U.S. Open.

Capriati, a prodigy at 13 and a millionaire by the time she was 15, was merely another first-round loser here Tuesday. And when she met the press after dropping a 1-6, 6-4, 6-4 match to unseeded Leila Meskhi, of the Republic of Georgia, the seventh-seeded Capriati tried her best to brush the loss off as just one of those things and tried her best to put on a brave face. But it wasn’t convincing, and it appeared that she has had a very unhappy ending to a very unhappy summer.

“Up until now, I was happy with the way I was playing and the way everything was going,” Capriati said. “I had a great week the week before last up in Canada. So I was really looking forward to this. But hey, it was a good year.”

Well, maybe. She had never gone out before the third round of the U.S. Open and this was her earliest exit ever from a Grand Slam event. She has gotten to one final this year and has lost four times to Steffi Graf and twice to Arantxa Sanchez Vicario, both players she must get past to take her career to the next level.

“I don’t know why I made so may errors today,” she said. “I wish I knew.”

Another upset victim Tuesday was Michael Stich, the sixth-seeded German, who lost a tough four-setter to Henrik Holm of Sweden, 6-3, 7-6 (10-8), 3-6, 6-3. Holm, whose serve frequently matched the 115 to 120 m.p.h. normal for Stich, is ranked 23rd in the world.

“That’s a tough first-round draw,” Stich said.

Stich had an ongoing controversy with the chair umpire and his anger eventually drew to courtside tournament supervisor Ken Ferrar, who gave Stich a brief hearing on his complaints. Later in the match, Stich was so angered by a chair overrule on an ace by Holm that he hit Holm’s second serve out on purpose.

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Two-time defending champion Stefan Edberg struggled to a 6-2, 0-6, 7-6 (9-7), 5-7, 6-3 victory over Olivier Delaitre of France; top-seeded Jim Courier steamrolled Marco Aurelio Gorriz of Spain, 6-1, 6-3, 6-3, and second-seeded former champion Pete Sampras took out Fabrice Santoro of France, 6-3, 6-1, 6-2. Michael Chang also had an easy time, beating Shelby Cannon, 6-1, 7-5, 6-2.

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The only other seeded casualty on the women’s side, other than Capriati, was No. 6 Mary Joe Fernandez, runner-up to Graf at the French this year. Fernandez withdrew from her Tuesday evening match, complaining of stomach pains.

Unseeded Pam Shriver, who burst on the scene here 15 years ago and made it to her only Grand Slam final, went out in the first round to Amy Frazier, 3-6, 6-3, 7-5. Shriver, 31, was serving for the set at 5-3 of the third and double-faulted for the break at 15-40.

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Attendance here, on a warm and sunny Tuesday, set records for both single session and full day. The 22,357 for a session broke an Aug. 26, 1991 record of 22,166. The full-day total was 43,113, topping the Sept. 2, 1992 mark of 42,483. Part of the reason was that the U.S. Tennis Assn. started selling 500 grounds passes for the first time.