Graf Is Best in Another Grand Finale

Steffi Graf of Germany and Arantxa Sanchez Vicario of Spain have a symbiotic relationship: Each brings out the best in the other. Each is the other’s foil. As tennis players, they seem to need their special chemistry to create spectacular results.

Their 35th meeting, Saturday in the women’s singles finals of the French Open, produced the requisite drama and tension and affirmed Graf’s indomitable will and Sanchez Vicario’s unquenchable fighting spirit.

In a fiercely contested match, Graf won her fifth French Open title, 6-3, 6-7 (4-7), 10-8. The 3-hour, 3-minute match was the longest women’s final at the French Open and contained the most games.

It was Graf’s 19th Grand Slam tournament singles title and her fourth consecutive. That moves Graf ahead of Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert and ties her with Helen Wills Moody. Margaret Smith Court holds the record with 24.

Sanchez Vicario twice served for the match in the third set after Graf was three points away from closing it out in the second. It seemed at times that their shot selection and play was not independent--Sanchez Vicario drove Graf to hit winners and without Graf’s fearsome forehand Sanchez Vicario would not have been as aggressive.

The two players have become almost permanent fixtures in the French Open final. Since 1987, when Graf won the first of her Grand Slam titles, either Graf or Sanchez Vicario have been in the final at Roland Garros. In 1989, a 17-year-old Sanchez Vicario beat Graf and established herself as one of the game’s top players.

It seems as if their professional lives have always intertwined at major events. Sanchez Vicario and Graf have met in the final of four of the last seven Grand Slam events. The last meeting Sanchez Vicario won was the 1994 U.S. Open, a match that Graf was two points from winning.

Until Saturday, the most memorable match between the two happened in the Wimbledon final last year. That match featured a game that went 20 minutes, contained 32 points and went to deuce 13 times.

“I think this is probably the most spectacular match between us,” Graf said. “There have been a lot of them. Wimbledon was dramatic. But I think this time it was even more incredible.”

Sanchez Vicario was crestfallen to have come so close and lost.

“Everybody can see that that was a great match,” she said. “It was very emotional. All the tension and all the nerves. I was so close. It was a very emotional day for me. I have to congratulate her. We both played our best game.”

For the first time in recent memory, Graf came into a Grand Slam tournament fully fit.

Sanchez Vicario, a two-time winner here, barely made a dent in the first set, which Graf stormed through in 40 minutes. The Spaniard hit only three winners in the set.

The second set offered four consecutive service breaks and Sanchez Vicario had two break points in the eighth game, but failed to convert.

Graf, 26, dominated the start of the tiebreaker and jumped to a 4-1 lead. But she lost six consecutive points and committed five unforced errors to lose the set.

“In the tiebreaker I was gone,” Graf said. “I was so nervous I couldn’t keep the ball in play.”

Graf never fully settled down. She committed 72 unforced errors, an unheard-of number. Both players were hitting deep and Graf, in particular, was firing for the lines.

Sanchez Vicario broke Graf in the fifth game of the third set. She had spent three more hours on the court than Graf getting through to the final and, even with her reputation for being indefatigable, Sanchez Vicario was tiring.

Graf held in a crucial game to pull to 3-4. She said later that if she had lost the game, she would have expected to lose the match.

She credited the crowd with helping her pick up her game in the beginning of the set. They chanted her name during changeovers and clearly supported her.

After the match, Graf smiled and laughed and cried and Sanchez Vicario fought to hold back tears. Graf had promised last year to speak to the crowd in French and, at first, she was too nervous to recite a prepared speech. Then, closing her eyes, Graf thanked the fans for the support they have shown her over 14 years here. She also thanked her family, including her jailed father, Peter, “back home,” awaiting trial on tax evasion charges in Germany.

Then, appropriately, she thanked her greatest helper--Sanchez Vicario.