Rubin Has Time of Her Life Again in Marathon Upset Victory

Chanda Rubin, a teenager already famous for winning marathon matches, outlasted Arantxa Sanchez Vicario, 6-4, 2-6, 16-14, Tuesday in the longest women’s match in the Australian Open.

Rubin, who advanced to a semifinal match with Monica Seles, let two match points slip away at 4-5 in the final set and another two at 13-14--one on a controversial line call. The American led, 0-40, lead at 14-15 and won on her sixth match point with a stretched forehand cross-court volley.

The third set took 2 hours, 22 minutes of the 3:33 match, which set Open-era tournament records for games (48) and final-set games (30).

In the second round at Wimbledon last year, Rubin beat Patricia Hy-Boulais, 7-6, 6-7, 17-15, in 3:45, establishing a Wimbledon women’s record for longest final set at 2:04 and number of games in a set.

Rubin also came back from a 0-5, 0-40 third-set deficit against Jana Novotna in the third round of last year’s French Open.

Rubin, seeded 13th, played an aggressive game throughout against No. 3 Sanchez Vicario, her doubles partner. She had twice as many winners as Sanchez Vicario--68 to 34--and twice as many unforced errors--96 to 48.

Rubin, and many in the audience of 15,000, thought she had won at 13-14, 30-40. Sanchez hit a backhand volley that Rubin argued had flown past the baseline, but the line judge’s view apparently was blocked by Rubin’s feet and there was no call.

Rubin then missed the next two points, held service and finally broke Sanchez Vicario after 13 consecutive service keeps by the two women.

The pair will be back on court today, this time as partners in a doubles match against top-seeded Gigi Fernandez and Natasha Zvereva.

In contrast to the marathon match, Seles routed seventh-seeded Iva Majoli, 6-1, 6-2, earlier in the day.

Seles rated her groin muscle, injured in a warmup tournament, as 4 on a scale of 10. A tendon just above her right ankle, pulled in the second set’s fourth game, makes it hard to push off, “but I was able to finish the match pretty strong, and I said to myself, ‘That’s OK,”’ Seles said.

As for the virus that has also slowed the three-time champion, “I’m feeling really good now,” and losing weight “is not my priority.”

“Some less weight would definitely help me to move better. It might take some power off my shots,” said Seles, who put on weight during the two years she was off the tour after being stabbed by a spectator in Germany in April 1993.

Today’s victory stretched her unbeaten streak in Australian Opens to 26 matches. So far this time, she has dropped only 17 games in 10 sets.

“She hit some unbelievable shots when she was stretched . . . I think sometimes she even likes when you stretch her. She can hit those great angles,” Majoli said.

“It’s pretty tough, maybe even impossible, to beat her. I think the only one who can really beat Monica is Steffi.”

Steffi Graf, however, is absent, recovering from bone surgery.

In another match, No. 5 Michael Chang marched into the semifinals with a 6-0, 6-2, 6-4 victory over Sweden’s Mikael Tillstrom, who ousted No. 3 Thomas Muster.