Seles Gets Victory, Final Next

Unable to lift her arm the day before, Monica Seles flirted with defeat Thursday until she imposed her will on indefatigable Chanda Rubin to reach the Australian Open final.

Seles, who will go for her fourth title at this Grand Slam event against Anke Huber on Saturday, pulled a muscle in her left shoulder lifting weights.

“I was lucky that I could serve today, compared with yesterday when I couldn’t lift my arm,” the left-handed Seles said after defeating Rubin, 6-7 (7-2), 6-1, 7-5, in a rain-interrupted match of brilliant rallies. “Yesterday, I had to stop [practice]. It will be OK. I tried to keep it warm and just tried to keep moving.”

It was another in a series of injuries that have beset her recently. She started the tournament with a groin pull, and strained a tendon above her right ankle in the quarterfinals.

Huber, a 21-year-old German who has never played in a Grand Slam final, defeated South Africa’s Amanda Coetzer, 4-6, 6-4, 6-2.

Seles trailed, 5-2, in the third set, then took over with sheer resolve to win five consecutive games and end the match.

“Chanda’s such a fighter, I’m very lucky to be in the final,” Seles said. “I just pulled it out by luck. I still can’t believe it.”

Rubin, 19, was coming off a victory over Arantxa Sanchez Vicario in the longest women’s match in Open history. She seemed to have Seles under her spell as she served for the match at 5-3, but the nerves that Rubin kept under control to that point suddenly appeared.

“I was thinking, just take my time,” said Rubin, who did that while also trying to put more power in her serves to close out the match. “I felt like I needed first serves. I made a decision to go for it.”

That decision, though, proved her undoing.

Rubin double-faulted for the fourth time, then drove an easy volley wide to fall behind, 30-40. Rubin saved one break point but not the next, netting a backhand approach.

“Maybe I went for a little bit too much,” said Rubin, who added that she wasn’t fatigued from the Sanchez Vicario match two days earlier.

Seles could hardly believe how well Rubin ran.

“I was very surprised at Chanda,” Seles said. “She was the one who was supposed to be tired after a marathon match against Arantxa. She was running down balls that other people don’t run for. I got nervous.

“She ran down so many balls, I’m thinking, ‘When are you going to stop running?’ ”

After Seles held easily to 5-5, Rubin double-faulted once more to start the next game, and wound up losing at love with three consecutive errors, the last a backhand long.

Sniffing victory, Seles wasted no time securing it, ending the final game at 40-15 with a forehand down the line into an open court after stretching Rubin wide.

*

Andre Agassi, the master of disaster, faces fellow American Michael Chang, who has coolly demolished all his opponents in straight sets, in one semifinal.

The Chang-Agassi match Friday should be perfect for the cerebral fan fed up with the elephant-gun power servers who have come to dominate the game.

In the other semifinal, Boris Becker will face favorite son Mark Woodforde, a member of the No. 1 doubles team now winning new respect in singles.

Agassi is making his comeback after being off the tour for 3 1/2 months while recovering from an injured chest muscle that ended his lock on the men’s No. 1 ranking.

He regained the top spot Wednesday by defeating Jim Courier in a cliffhanger quarterfinal, 6-7 (7-9), 2-6, 6-3, 6-4, 6-2.

“I know technically I’m not starting off as aggressive as far as my footwork, and I definitely had some slow starts, but that’s not unusual for me,” he said.

The long, hard struggle Agassi has had in Melbourne contrasts with Chang’s straight-set victories over five opponents.