Seles rolls back the years to beat Graf

MONICA SELES rolled back the years and ran Steffi Graf out of the Australian Open here today handing her long time rival a 7-5, 6-1 quarterfinal beating.

It had been six long and often tragic years since Seles last beat Graf and it happened here on the centre court at Melbourne Park. The stabbing in Hamburg and the recent death of her father have taken the twinkle out of Seles's eyes - but not the grunt or the power.

After a slow start in the bright sunshine, Seles broke back from 2-4 down in the first set to pressure Graf with thunderous drives off her double-fisted backhand and, in the end, the German could not stand the pressure. A Graf double fault on set point at 5-6 unlocked the door for Seles and the rest was a blur of power-packed drives accompanied by the famous grunt. Graf tried vainly to stage a comeback at 0-5 down in the second set and even produced enough penetrating forehands to reach breakpoint twice when Seles served for the match at 5-1. But there was no stopping Seles in this mood and a wayward Graf forehand ensured that marvellous Monica preserved her unbeaten record on Australian soil. Afterwards Graf seemed stunned. "Obviously I got tight and nervous but I don't know why I couldn't change it around anymore," she said. "I mean, I couldn't focus on the next point. I was just throwing the balls all over the place and didn't know what to do anymore." Seles remained downbeat afterwards, refusing to admit that playing her old rival, who has also won this title four times, was anything special. "It was just really good for me to be there in my head today because I haven't been there all the time in some matches," Seles said. "So I was just really proud of myself today. I just played my game the way I should have played all these years." Seles will now play Martina Hingis in the semi-finals following the Swiss player's comprehensive 6-3, 6-4 defeat of yet another former champion, Mary Pierce of France Pierce had been hitting the ball as well as ever in the previous rounds but Hingis unravelled her opponent's game with her tactical brilliance. Like a chess player, Hingis thinks several moves ahead and rallies ended with Pierce standing on one side of the court and Hingis hitting into an empty space on the other. Germany's Tommy Haas outplayed American giant-killer Vincent Spadea 7-6, 7-5, 6-3 to become the third unseeded player through to the men's singles semi-finals. Haas, 21, won a 135-minute quarterfinal battle of power-hitters to record by far the best performance of a modest career in which he had so far been unable to make it past the third round of a Grand Slam. Haas secured the match when he broke 24-year-old Spadea's serve in the ninth game of the final set. The world No 33 will now meet either 10th seed Yevgeny Kafelnikov or 15th seed Todd Martin. Russia's Kafelnikov was due to play the inform American later today in a battle of the only two seeded players left in the tournament. "Both of them are excellent players and I'm looking forward to the match," Haas said after beating 44th-ranked Spadea. Spadea robbed the tournament of one of its biggest stars when he upset fifth seed and hot favourite Andre Agassi in the fourth round. Meanwhile, singles semi-finalist Nicolas Lapentti has pulled out of the doubles suffering from exhaustion after playing 24 sets in five matches. The man from Ecuador was due to partner Gustavo Kuerten of Brazil in a quarterfinal against fifth seeds Jonas Bjorkman and Pat Rafter. "There's no injury, I'm just very exhausted," he said. "I saw the doctor and we both decided it would be better if I didn't play." The 22-year-old world No 91 came through a five-set thriller against seventh seed Karol Kucera to book a singles semi-final against Thomas Enqvist of Sweden.

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