Recharged Sanchez Vicario Wins : Tennis: After sitting on sidelines, top-seeded player defeats Applemans, 6-0, 3-6, 6-2. Sabatini also advances.

Never one to enjoy basking in life’s idle moments, Arantxa Sanchez Vicario has not thrived lately, living as a shut-in for nearly a week with no tournament tennis to play. Since the No. 2-ranked player in the world was ousted in the third round at La Costa last week, she has had a first-round bye and a second-round walkover in the Acura Classic this week.

Lacking matches, Sanchez Vicario has been left to her own devices, which meant she sat around waiting to play tennis.

“I wanted to play and start the tournament,” Sanchez Vicario said, tapping her foot rapidly, still brimming with energy after her third-round 6-0, 3-6, 6-2 victory over Sabine Applemans of Belgium Thursday night at Manhattan Country Club.

“It was the first time I had a wait so long to play my first match. You practice, but practice is not playing.”

Sanchez Vicario, 23, has a gusto for the game that is rarely diminished. Thursday night, while describing how she copes with not playing, she managed to sound like a kid who looks longingly out a window while her friends are playing outside.

“You have adrenaline and you want to play,” Sanchez Vicario said. “You see the other players playing and say, ‘When will I get to play?’ I’m a competitive woman, and I want to play.”

Sanchez Vicario vented her energy by plowing through the first set, leaving Applemans behind in a wake of pinpoint lobs and topspin forehands.

“She seemed very eager to play,” Applemans said. “Eager to do better than last week.”

Applemans flickered to life in the first game of the second set, while Sanchez Vicario was serving. She scrambled to place difficult shots in order to end the points quickly. However, in that game she ill-advisedly tried a drop shot against Sanchez Vicario. The speedy Spaniard bolted from behind the baseline and got to the ball and won the point with a forehand put away. The ball was playable, but Applemans had been rooted to the court, watching with horror as Sanchez Vicario ran down her “ungettable” drop shot.

Applemans eventually prevailed in the game, breaking Sanchez Vicario to win her first game of the match and take her first lead. She allowed herself a celebratory raised fist, which the crowd applauded heartily.

Applemans broke again in the sixth game and took the set, which seemed to have the effect of energizing both players in the third. They put together long rallies as neither player was disposed to venture near the net.

Sanchez Vicario pressed in the third, nearly always prevailing when rallies lasted longer than a few shots.

Only one seeded player failed to advance Thursday. Yayuk Basuki defeated ninth-seeded Nathalie Tauziat, 4-6, 6-3, 6-2.

Third-seeded Gabriela Sabatini defeated Karina Habsudova, 7-5, 6-3; fourth-seeded Lindsay Davenport defeated 12th-seeded Amanda Coetzer, 6-1, 6-2; sixth-seeded Natasha Zvereva defeated Asa Carlsson, 4-6, 6-3, 6-2, and 10th-seeded Chanda Rubin defeated Nathalie Baudone, 7-6 (7-3), 3-6, 6-1.

Sabatini, who had trouble getting through her opening match, regained her confidence in Thursday’s match. Habsudova, 22, was undone by her prodigious number of unforced errors.

So easy was the 56-minute match that Sabatini fretted that it wasn’t preparation enough for the next round.

“The toughest thing when you have a match like this is to have concentration,” Sabatini said. “Maybe she’s missing too much and the points aren’t too long. What I have to do is focus and concentrate on the match and try to get it over with.”