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ROME -- No matter how bleak things looked Sunday, Amelie Mauresmo refused to let Jennifer Capriati beat her.
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Now Mauresmo heads to the French Open looking like a favorite.
Coming back from a set down, then saving a match point, Mauresmo beat Capriati 3-6, 6-3, 7-6 (8-6) to win the Italian Open for her second straight title.
"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.
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| Jennifer Capriati stumbles against Amelie Mauresmo for the second straight tournament.(AP) |
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.
AP NEWS
The Associated Press News Service
Copyright 2004, The Associated Press, All Rights Reserved
