Seles Advances to Tennis Semifinals

Monica Seles needs one more win for her first Olympic medal.

Easing the memory of a disappointing performance at the Atlanta Games, Seles advanced to the women’s tennis semifinals by beating Dominique Van Roost of Belgium, 6-0, 6-2, today.

Seles, seeded No. 3, has lost only 10 games in four matches. Her next opponent will be the winner of the quarterfinal between No. 2 Venus Williams and No. 5 Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario of Spain.

“It’s going to be a very tough match, but that’s how it should be--it’s the semifinals of the Olympics,” Seles said. “Obviously it would be fun to play Venus. We’re teammates. At least that way, we know one of us would go through.”

Unseeded Jelena Dokic, the only Australian still in singles, beat No. 7 Amanda Coetzer of South Africa, 6-1, 1-6, 6-1.

In men’s play, No. 6 Alex Corretja of Spain lost to Tommy Haas of Germany, 7-6 (7), 6-3. Corretja was the last seeded player in his half of the draw. Haas’ next opponent will be Max Mirnyi of Belarus, who beat Mariano Zabaleta of Argentina 7-6 (4), 6-2. Third-seeded Magnus Norman of Sweden joined a long list of fallen favorites, losing, 7-6 (4), 7-6 (2), to France’s Arnaud Di Pasquale.

CYCLING: France’s Miguel Martinez took control late in the sixth lap to win the gold medal in the men’s cross-country mountain bike race. He was timed in 2 hours 9 minutes 2 seconds, more than a minute ahead of silver medalist Filip Meirhaeghe of Belgium. Christoph Sauser of Switzerland got the bronze.

TRAMPOLINE: Russia’s Alexander Moskalenko, a four-time world champion who came out of retirement when trampoline became an Olympic sport, went last and came away with the gold medal, pushing Australia’s Ji Wallace to second with a high-flying routine.

MEN’S VOLLEYBALL: Giving up too many easy points and making a lesser team look great, the U.S. men’s indoor team lost its fourth consecutive match. The loss to South Korea eliminated the Americans from contention.

GRECO-ROMAN WRESTLING: Matt Lindland, who spent two months fighting in the legal system for the right to wrestle in the Olympics, saying he wasn’t fatigued from the legal battle as he won his first match, 3-0, over Tarieli Melelashvili of Georgia at 167 1/2 pounds.

TEAM HANDBALL: Australia led the crowd in song before its women’s team was routed, 39-10, by Austria, eliminating the host team from medal contention. Austria (2-1-0), which opened with three unanswered goals against Australia (0-4-0), plays Pool B-leading Norway next. “It was a good training session,” Austria’s Ausrele Fridrikas said.

FIELD HOCKEY: Malaysia was only a minute away from its first men’s field hockey victory when Pakistan took the glory away. Two consecutive penalty corners in the last few minutes set up a goal scored by Sohail Abbas that gave Pakistan a 2-2 tie. In other games, India topped Spain, 3-2, Australia edged Argentina, 2-1, and Germany tied the Netherlands, 2-2.