Nothing New Under the Sun: Graf Prevails

One season blends into another on the professional tennis tour, marked by the same tournaments in the same cities, the monotony broken only by the occasional controversy.

Thus, the return of Steffi Graf to tennis has fallen into the same rhythm that existed before she left last November: Graf, nursing some hidden infirmity, stoically fighting off break points and eventually crushing her opponent under the sheer force of her will.

The template seldom changes in a Graf match, and Saturday’s final against Conchita Martinez in the State Farm Evert Cup was no different. The top-seeded Graf prevailed in a match that produced 95 unforced errors, defeating second-seeded Martinez, 7-6 (7-5), 7-6 (7-5), to win the first tournament she has played in in four months. Graf had 53 unforced errors, Martinez 42.

“We both didn’t play our best tennis, that was pretty obvious out there,” Graf said. “Obviously, the heat was a big factor, but it still wasn’t the best. I think we both didn’t return as good as we could.”

No one can remember the last time Graf played a match in which she was pain-free. Here, Graf has been suffering from stomach cramps and a bad back. The back didn’t bother her on Saturday, she said.

If her play wasn’t up to her own exacting standards after nearly two months of inactivity following foot surgery last December, neither did it have to be. Martinez played well, but not on the points that mattered, always the measure of excellence.

Graf won the title she had last taken in 1994, and, with her $100,000 prize money, left to join other seeded players at the Mike Tyson-Frank Bruno fight in Las Vegas.

Graf holds a 12-1 career record against Martinez, who, against the German, doesn’t seem able to conquer her nerves.

“I certainly had many chances today,” Martinez said. “We made a lot of unforced errors. I don’t know. For me, having Steffi on the other side of the net, it was difficult because she was doing unforced errors, it didn’t give me a lot of rhythm. The way she plays, I didn’t know where the ball was going to go.”

That sounds as if Graf employed a sound strategy on a hot day at the Hyatt Grand Champions.

The heat may have stifled play, and it certainly affected 12-year-old ball boy Ryan McLeod. In the fifth game of the first set, with the on-court temperature 110 degrees, McLeod fainted. He was packed in ice and eventually was able to walk off under his own power.

Graf said later that she felt much the way McLeod did, but believed it would be unwise to call for a 10-minute extreme-weather timeout as allowed under the rules because once she stopped playing she might have felt worse.

The players seemed sapped, unable or unwilling to control the match. Each service break was answered by another. Graf got the first break, to go up 5-4. She was serving for the set in the next game, but Martinez broke back.

Martinez got off to a 4-2 lead in the tiebreaker but she was unable to hold it or hold off Graf.

Unable to annoy Graf with her shots, Martinez resorted to a classic anti-Graf tactic: slow play. She shuffled to the baseline when serving and closely examined the strings on her racket when returning serve. Graf, who prefers to play at a brisk pace, was not amused.

There were five breaks in a row in the second set and that left the score 5-5. Graf won the critical next game. Martinez held serve and sent the set into a tiebreaker in which she again held a 4-2 lead. Graf won the match on a trademark shot, a forehand return winner.