FRENCH OPEN : Spanish Conquest : Women: Sanchez Vicario rattles Pierce with long rallies, triumphs easily, 6-4, 6-4.

About the only mistake Spain’s Arantxa Sanchez Vicario made Sunday at Roland Garros Stadium was an innocent one.

After winning the French Open women’s title by turning hard-hitting Mary Pierce into merely another error-prone player, Sanchez Vicario, speaking in English, thanked the Queen of Spain.

She meant King Juan Carlos I, as Queen Sofia was not among the 17,000 at Center Court who witnessed Sanchez Vicario’s 6-4, 6-4 anticlimactic victory on a wind-swept day in Paris. The Queen did not arrive in Paris until the men’s final.

The Spanish will forgive her indiscretion today because they will be too busy celebrating their ascent to the top of the tennis world. For the first time, a Spanish man and woman have won the same Grand Slam tournament. Sergi Bruguera won the men’s title.

Spain’s firm grip on the French Open was ensured Sunday when Sanchez Vicario defeated Pierce with defensive strokes that left her looking unsure for the first time in two weeks.

“I think I was more mentally strong than she was,” Sanchez Vicario said. “I just waited for my opportunities.”

And once they started coming, they came like a cascade. Pierce reached the final by losing only a record-setting 12 games in six matches. Possessing the hardest-hitting forehand in women’s tennis, she flattened opponents with almost too much ease.

But playing for France because her mother, Yannick, is French, she looked nervous Saturday when three games were completed before the match was suspended because of rain. Pierce led, 2-1, and was playing for a break point.

When play resumed Sunday afternoon, Pierce took less than a minute to take a 3-1 lead with a backhand winner for the break. But it already was apparent she was not going to roll past Sanchez Vicario the way she did the others in Paris.

And, finally, serving for a 4-1 lead, Pierce failed to convert three game points--each time on errors provoked by Sanchez Vicario.

Unlike six opponents before, Sanchez Vicario was absolutely steadfast in forcing Pierce into long rallies. It was a strategy that earned Sanchez Vicario her second major title. She won the 1989 French Open when she was 17, and has finished second in three other Grand Slam tournaments.

The fifth game was a 15-minute struggle won by Sanchez Vicario when Pierce hit a backhand wide on the fourth break point. The next time she served, Pierce held off five break points to take a 4-3 lead, but her confidence was shaken.

Then Pierce, 19, did something her coach, Nick Bollettieri, told her not to: She started to think. Instead of serving confidently, Pierce slowly bounced the ball and deliberately tossed it in the air. Inevitably her first serve was long, and one of her vital weapons was rendered useless.

At one frustrating point, Pierce looked up in the stands and said to Bollettieri and her mother, “My feet are like lead.”

“I wanted to win too much, I was taking the game too seriously,” Pierce said. “Up until now I’d just been enjoying myself. Today I was a little tense.”

Pierce, who entered the tournament ranked 12th but will improve to seventh when the rankings come out this week, has overcome many obstacles--including problems with her father, Jim--in the past year to reach her first Grand Slam tournament final.

She and her mother filed restraining orders to keep Jim Pierce from coming near them last winter. Pierce also was banned from tour events for disruptive behavior in the stands last year.

After Mary Pierce defeated top-ranked Steffi Graf in the semifinals, security guards were hired to protect the athlete although Jim Pierce was home in Florida.

Before Sunday, Graf or Monica Seles had won the 13 Grand Slam events after the Australian Open in 1991. This was only the second Grand Slam final since the 1978 French Open in which neither Graf nor Seles, who has not competed since being stabbed in April of 1993, played.

Fans of women’s tennis embraced Pierce as a fresh personality to join the elite players, but whether she will develop into a powerful force is debatable.

“It depends on what she wants to give of herself,” Bollettieri said. “She has the potential, but also a lot of unknowns. We’ll have to see what her reaction is to having a taste of a major championship (match).”

Notes

Gigi Fernandez and Natalie Zvereva of Belarus defeated Americans Lindsay Davenport and Lisa Raymond in the women’s doubles final, 6-2, 6-2.