Knee Trouble to Keep Graf Out of Evert Cup

The list of star players entered in next month’s men’s and women’s tennis extravaganza in the desert decreased by one Friday, with the withdrawal of Steffi Graf.

Graf, winner of the State Farm Evert Cup each time she has entered--1994 and ‘96--has an infected kneecap and has been advised to not rush her comeback. She also will miss Fed Cup competition March 1-2 in Germany, plus the Lipton tournament at Key Biscayne, Fla., which immediately follows the March 7-15 Evert Cup event in Indian Wells.

This sort of extended absence from the Women’s Tennis Assn. tour puts Graf in jeopardy of losing her No. 1 ranking to 16-year-old Martina Hingis of Switzerland. No. 2 Hingis, currently not entered at Indian Wells, trails Graf by a surmountable margin of 750.50 points.

Friday’s pullout by Graf could change Hingis’ thinking, especially since a run at the No. 1 ranking seems best timed now. But an Evert Cup official called a change of heart by Hingis a longshot.

“We have held back a wild-card entry for her, and she knows that,” said Steve Simon, director of marketing for the dual event that also includes the men’s Newsweek Champions Cup on March 10-16. “She knows we’d love to have her. If anything like that happens, I would expect that it would happen at the last minute.”

Hingis currently is scheduled to play at the Lipton, as well as at clay-court tournaments in the weeks after the Lipton in Hilton Head, S.C., and Amelia Island, Fla. Adding Indian Wells to the front end of that schedule would be opportunistic for point-gathering, but also grueling.

The loss of Graf, a stunner for most tournaments, is considerably less crucial to the Indian Wells event. The women’s field still has seven of the top 10 in the world, and the men nine of 10.

“It’s always a disappointment to lose a player as great as Steffi is,” Simon said, “but we still have a tremendous field.”

The women’s field is led by No. 3 Arantxa Sanchez Vicario, No. 5 Conchita Martinez, No. 6 Monica Seles, No. 7 Anke Huber, No. 8 Lindsay Davenport, No. 9 Iva Majoli and No. 10 Irina Spirlea. Missing from the top 10 are Graf, Hingis and No. 4 Jana Novtona.

The men’s field is missing only No. 7 Richard Krajicek, last year’s Wimbledon champion, who is recovering from knee surgery. The entry list, in order of ranking, includes Pete Sampras, Thomas Muster, Goran Ivanisevic, Michael Chang, Yevgeny Kafelnikov, Marcelo Rios, Thomas Enqvist, Wayne Ferreira and Carlos Moya.