Two-time defending champion Monica Seles won a battle of attrition today to beat unseeded Julie Halard of France 6-2, 6-7 (5-7), 6-0 and advance to the semifinals of the Australian Open.
Seles will play the winner of the late match between third-seeded Gabriela Sabatini and 10th-seeded Mary Pierce in Thursday's semifinals. Second-seeded Steffi Graf will face fourth-seeded Arantxa Sanchez Vicario in the other semifinal.Graf beat seventh-seeded Jennifer Capriati 7-5, 6-2 and Sanchez Vicario defeated fifth-seeded Mary Joe Fernandez 7-5, 6-4.
In the men's quarterfinals Wednesday, No. 1 Jim Courier plays No. 7 Petr Korda, No. 2 Stefan Edberg faces unseeded Christian Bergstrom, No. 3 Pete Sampras meets unseeded Brett Steven and No. 11 Guy Forget faces No. 14 Michael Stich.
Seles had been virtually untouchable, losing only eight games in four matches before running into the 29th-ranked Halard, who was playing in the quarterfinals of a Grand Slam for the first time in 23 tries.
Halard beat sixth-seeded Conchita Martinez in the last round and appeared to be unfazed by Seles' barrage of blistering groundstrokes.
Cheered by a partisan crowd on a nearly packed Center Court with the roof closed because of drizzle, Halard traded baseline rallies and rushed the net to pressure the Yugoslav-born Florida resident at every opportunity.
Seles still looked as if she would overwhelm Halard quickly, breaking to go up 4-2, then finishing off the first set in 28 minutes when Halard was broken again on four errors.
But Halard refused to fold, taking advantage of her first opportunity to break Seles to go up 4-3. She served for the second set at 5-4, only to have Seles break to even the match.
Seles held, then had triple match point at 0-40 in the next game. Halard pounded two service winners, around around a good volley that Seles hit long. After Seles netted a backhand, Halard blasted an ace to force the tiebreaker.
Halard never trailed in the tiebreaker, finishing it off on her second set point with a forehand crosscourt winner.
"I never should have let her back into the match," Seles said. "I wasn't going for my shots."
The Capriati-Graf confrontation, a rematch of the gold-medal match that the 16-year-old American won in the Barcelona Olympics, featured two of the game's hardest hitters. Capriati appeared to wear down as she was forced to run from corner to corner.
"That was pretty hard," she said. "The only time I've ever hit that hard was against Monica two years ago at the U.S. Open. It was real intense."
Capriati came out strong, breaking serve in the first game, but the German rebounded to even the score at 2-2 when Capriati hit four balls into the net.
The set appeared to be heading for a tiebreaker with Capriati serving at 5-6 when Graf elevated her play a notch. She stroked a forehand crosscourt service return for a winner, then uncharacteristically charged the net three times, winning each point.
Capriati broke Graf to go ahead 2-1 in the second set, but Graf ran off the next five games to finish off the match.