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Mauresmo wins Italian Open over Capriati
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-05-17 10:50

No matter how bleak things looked Sunday, Amelie Mauresmo refused to let Jennifer Capriati beat her. Coming back from a set down, then saving a match point, Mauresmo beat Capriati 3-6, 6-3, 7-6 (6) to win the Italian Open for her second straight title.

Now Mauresmo heads to the French Open looking like a favorite.

"It was so close," said Mauresmo, who also defeated Capriati en route to the German Open title a week ago.

"When you get to the third-set tiebreaker, you don't really know what is going to happen. You just hang in there, go for it if you have the opportunity, and I felt that's what I did."

The only other women to win the German Open and Italian Open consecutively — Steffi Graf in 1987, and Monica Seles in 1990 — went on to take home the trophy from Roland Garros.

So does that make Mauresmo the leading candidate to win in Paris, where play starts a week from Monday?

"I hope. We'll see. Of course it gives you a lot of confidence to win these kind of matches, especially in the final," the Frenchwoman said. "Next week, I want to rest a bit, and then there's Roland Garros. I hope to carry on like this."

At the last big men's French Open tuneup tournament, top-ranked Roger Federer defeated Guillermo Coria 4-6, 6-4, 6-2, 6-3 to win the Hamburg Masters in Germany. Federer improved to 32-3 in 2004, and he ended Coria's 31-match winning streak on clay, which dated to last year's French Open.

Mauresmo's run on the surface is more modest — she lost in the quarterfinals of a tournament in Warsaw on April 30.

She also came quite close to losing Sunday. Capriati held a match point on Mauresmo's serve while leading 5-4 in the third set, but the American hit a forehand long.

Mauresmo, the runner-up at Rome's clay-court tournament three of the past four years, closed out the win on her second match point, when Capriati's backhand sailed long.

"I felt that I had some more energy left than she did," Mauresmo said. "It was a very intense match — very long and very intense from the beginning. The level was unbelievable from the first game."

The match was filled with long baseline rallies, including a 28-stroke point won by Capriati in the opening game. Capriati later saved Mauresmo's first match point with an impressive running forehand cross-court passing shot.

Mauresmo beat Capriati in the semifinals at Berlin.

"Last week, she played really well, and I wasn't ready for her," Capriati said. "So I had something to prove to myself and to her."

At 4-3 in the first set Sunday, Capriati produced a running passing shot that helped break Mauresmo, then served out the set.

In the second set, Mauresmo stepped up her game and broke to go up 3-1. With Capriati spraying forehands long or into the net, Mauresmo maintained the advantage and forced a third set.

"I felt like we were both playing unbelievable tennis and I didn't lose, she had to win the match," Capriati said. "I don't feel that bad right now.

"It was just a really fantastic match. That's what I thrive for and that's what I play for, these kind of matches."

Mauresmo, who won $189,000, dedicated the victory to her father, who died in March of cancer.

 
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