A Lucky Loser Eliminates Pierce

At 1 p.m. Ai Sugiyama was mad at herself. In her own words she had not played tennis aggressively enough and suffered a bad loss to a lower ranked player, Meilen Tu, in the final of the qualifier for the TIG Tennis Classic at La Costa.

About eight hours later Sugiyama was not mad at herself. Having received word at 5:30 that she had received a berth in the main draw--thanks to a stress fracture in the arm of Maggie Maleeva, who had to withdraw--Sugiyama was a very lucky loser.

As the owner of the highest WTA ranking (No. 32) among losers in the last round of the qualifier, Sugiyama went back onto the court at 7 p.m. to replace Maleeva and upset No. 5-seeded Mary Pierce, 6-3, 4-6, 6-1.

Sugiyama, a 24-year-old from Japan, kept running down all of Pierce’s groundstrokes, the good ones and even the many misplaced ones, and so a day that started so poorly ended up with Sugiyama letting out a squeal of delight.

“I had been feeling kind of down after losing to Meilen,” Sugiyama said. “I knew what I had done wrong in the morning. I wasn’t aggressive enough. I’m happy to get another chance tonight.”

The crucial game turned out to be the fourth game of the third set. After Pierce had saved five break points, Sugiyama, who continually attacked Pierce’s second serve, cracked a backhand return winner on break point No. 6 to take a 3-1 lead.

Notes

Steffi Graf said Monday that she was surprised to hear how upset John McEnroe was when Graf defaulted from their mixed-doubles semifinal at Wimbledon. Because of a condensed schedule caused by rain delays and a case of bronchitis that Graf is still struggling to get over, she told McEnroe she would prefer to concentrate on her singles final. “I thought he understood,” Graf said. The pair had been packing Centre Court for all their matches and, Graf said, “I think John was taking it a little more seriously than I was.”

TIG Tennis Classic

STADIUM COURT

Beginning 11 a.m.

Elena Likhovtseva vs. Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario (6)

Meilen Tu vs. Anna Kournikova

Chanda Rubin vs. Martina Hingis (2)

Beginning 7 p.m.

Amy Frazier vs. Steffi Graf (3)

Amelie Mauresmo vs. Sandrine Testud

COURT 9

Beginning 11 a.m.

Anke Huber vs. Nathalie Tauziat (8)

Amanda Coetzer (7) vs. Lisa Raymond

Conchita Martinez-Patricia Tarabini

vs. Barbara Schett-Patty Schnyder

Lindsay Davenport-Corina Morariu (3)

vs. Anke Huber-Elena Tatarkova

COURT 11

Beginning 11 a.m.

Natasha Zvereva vs. Fabiola Zuluaga

Maureen Drake vs. Dominique Van Roost

Nathalie Tauziat-Natasha Zvereva (1)

vs. Kristine Kunce-Anne-Gaelle Sidot