Sanchez Vicario Gets Quick Win After Long Day

Natalia Zvereva was sick, it probably was flu, she defaulted her quarterfinal match and Arantxa Sanchez Vicario was really sympathetic. Well, not really.

“I hope she doesn’t give it to me,” Sanchez Vicario said.

Zvereva had already given her the match and a place in the U.S. Open semifinals, ending a strange Wednesday of rain and delays by losing the first three games in eight minutes.

While everything else on a soggy day of tennis seemed drawn out, Sanchez Vicario won quickly when Zvereva said she was too sick to continue.

Sanchez Vicario smiled broadly: “Now I finish, I can go.”

She wasn’t going anywhere when it rained all day, delaying the match about eight hours. Zvereva, who said she started to feel ill Monday night, decided she couldn’t go on because she had nose and throat problems and felt weak.

Zvereva said she did not tank to save herself for her doubles semifinal. Zvereva and partner Gigi Fernandez are trying for the Grand Slam doubles title, but Zvereva said if she feels bad, she knows what she will do.

“If I feel like dying on the court, I am going to default,” she said.

Sanchez Vicario’s opponent in the semifinals is Helena Sukova, who overpowered Katerina Maleeva in another rain-delayed quarterfinal, 6-4, 6-7 (7-3), 6-3.

Maleeva, who had 14 break-point chances and blew 11 of them, didn’t convert any of the six chances to break in the first set.

Sukova said she followed a simple routine during the rain delay, which seemed to work pretty well once she got on the court.

“Eating and waiting, and eating and waiting and then warming up, getting ready and then it started to rain again,” she said.

It is Sukova’s first Grand Slam semifinal since the 1990 Australian Open, when she lost to Steffi Graf.