Coetzer Will Try for a Passing Grade : Tennis: She defeats Davenport to advance to Evert Cup final against top-ranked Graf.

Amanda Coetzer of South Africa knows what she’ll be up against when she plays top-ranked Steffi Graf today in the championship match of the Evert Cup at Hyatt Grand Champions.

“Not many people have beaten her,” Coetzer said of Graf, who is 16-0 this year. “So, you go out there and really just try to stay in the game. When she’s playing well, she can really beat you by far.”

Playing Graf is not like playing anybody else on the WTA Tour, said Iva Majoli of Croatia, who lost to the German, 6-4, 6-1, on Saturday.

“It’s always fun when you play the No. 1 player in the world,” Majoli said. “Sometimes, you can’t just look to play somebody so you can win. Sometimes, it’s good to play Steffi and see how you’re doing.”

Coetzer, who lost in last year’s Evert Cup final to Mary Joe Fernandez, will find out today after advancing with a 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 victory over Lindsay Davenport, a 17-year-old senior at Murrieta Valley High.

She looks forward to it.

“I’m glad to be back in the finals again,” said Coetzer, who squandered two match points in last year’s final.

Asked what it would take to win, she laughed nervously.

Coetzer, 22, is 0-3 against Graf, 24, and has yet to win a set, winning more than two games only once, but still she said: “The more I play her, the more comfortable I feel. I kind of get an idea of how fast she’s moving on the court and how she wins her points.”

Usually, very easily.

Against Majoli, however, Graf started slowly, losing her serve in the first game and failing to win a point against Majoli’s serve in the second and fourth.

“I started (the match) not moving toward the ball very well and gave her the chance to play aggressively,” Graf said. “I hit a lot of returns not really in the middle of my racket and then I told myself, ‘Come on, just try to keep the ball in play first and try to get yourself into the game,’ which worked in the middle of the first set.

“Once I finished the first set, I think I was concentrating better out there. I played the points better and I stepped into the ball a bit more, played more aggressively.”

Graf held serve the rest of the way, broke Majoli twice in each set and made it off the court in less than an hour, winning in 59 minutes.

Said Majoli, a 16-year-old from Croatia who is 0-4 against Graf: “The first set, I was doing fine. The second, I got killed.”

Davenport was fine in the first set, too, but later seemed frustrated by the tireless Coetzer, an energetic baseliner who, at 5 feet 2 and 122 pounds, is a foot shorter and about 50 pounds lighter than Davenport.

“It’s part of my game,” said Coetzer, who despite an ability to frustrate opponents with her tenacity, lost to Davenport, 6-1, 6-2, at last year’s U.S. Open. “She can either make winners right into the corners, or she’s going to miss a few. I just try to keep the ball in play and hope she misses at the right stages.”

Will a similar strategy beat Graf?

“The only thing that you can do is just start playing better and if she makes more errors and you make more winners, then you have a chance,” Majoli said. “But otherwise. . . .”