Brutal Heat, Coetzer Too Much for Graf

MELBOURNE, Australia — Steffi Graf’s 45-match winning streak in Grand Slam events ended today at the ovenlike Australian Open as she succumbed to the oppressive heat and Amanda Coetzer, 6-2, 7-5.

Graf, who had won all six majors she entered in the last two years, failed to reach the quarterfinals of a Grand Slam tournament for only the second time in a decade.

With temperatures soaring to 100 degrees in the shade, and probably 40 degrees higher on the sun-baked rubberized hard courts, the top-seeded Graf asked to be treated several times with ice packs during the match. But there was no escape from her own mistakes and the pressure of Coetzer, who clawed back from a 2-5 deficit in the second set.

Graf’s first loss in a major since the final of the 1994 U.S. Open ended a stunning afternoon of defeats by seeded women.

No. 3 Conchita Martinez, also a victim of heat exhaustion, fell to Sabine Applemans, 2-6, 7-5, 6-1; Mary Pierce beat No. 5 Anke Huber, 6-2, 6-3; and Kimberly Po ousted No. 7 Lindsay Davenport, 7-6 (15-13), 6-4.

Graf, now able to return to Germany for the verdict later this week in her father’s tax evasion trial, trailed, 2-5, for the third consecutive match. This time, she couldn’t come back.

Graf saved one set point at 1-5 in the first set and kept for 5-2, but lost the next game on three netted forehands and a backhand crosscourt winner by the 12th-seeded Coetzer, a semifinalist at the Australian Open last year.

Graf appeared to get back to her usual pattern in the second set as she raced to a 4-0 lead, losing only five points in the process as she pounded forehand winners.

The momentum started to shift back when she started the next game with a double fault and dropped service on a forehand long and a netted backhand. But she was unable to break despite three double faults by Coetzer in the sixth game.

Graf held her next serve for a 5-2 lead, but had to battle through 17 minutes, four break points and 10 deuces, finally winning on her seventh game point.

Coetzer held at love for 5-3, broke with the loss of only one point for 5-4, saved two break points, kept for 5-5, and then broke Graf again.

With Coetzer serving for the match, Graf saved one match point at 40-15 with a forehand winner down the line, but then sent a backhand serve return just long.

Po outlasted Davenport, the Olympic gold medalist, to win one of the longest tiebreakers in women’s singles history, then closed out the match to reach the quarterfinals--the first time she’s gone past the third round in a Grand Slam event in 19 appearances.

The 25-year-old Po, nearly a foot shorter than the 6-foot-2 1/2, 20-year-old Davenport, played much more consistently in the second set after trailing, 3-0.

While the seventh-seeded Davenport sprayed shots wide, long and into the net for 28 unforced errors in the set, the No. 23-ranked Po was nearly flawless as she won six of the final seven games.

The tiebreaker between the two Southern Californians tied for the third-longest in women’s singles in the Open era since 1968. Po, who overcame a 4-1 deficit to push the set into a tiebreaker, faced four set points in the tiebreaker and held six of her own before putting it away.

For Davenport, the loss was another in a string of disappointing performances since she won the gold medal in Atlanta and beat Graf en route to a tournament title in Los Angeles afterward. Davenport has trimmed down to the point where she can chase down balls all over the court, but her weight loss may also have taken some of the sting and timing out of her game.

“I knew she was tired, so I just wanted to make her hit one more ball,” Po said. “I won a lot of points that way.”

Davenport also may have gone into the match thinking too far ahead. She had talked after her last victory about looking forward to facing Graf again, saying her goal for this tournament was to give the German a good match and perhaps beat her once more.

Unhappy with her game and life on the tour early last year, Po thought 1996 would be her last year playing singles.

“I wasn’t enjoying the lifestyle and the traveling,” Po said. “I just decided I wasn’t putting my full effort into it, but I didn’t want to quit playing without seeing what I could have done. The last six months have been nice.”

Po beat four top-10 players last summer. Now she has beaten five of the top 10 in the past six months.

Mary Pierce, a champion two years ago but dumped in disgrace by her coach last year, showed she’s back in form to contend for a second Australian Open title.

Pierce, uninspired and out of condition when she lost in the second round a year ago, looked charged up as she beat last year’s runner-up, Huber, 6-2, 6-3, to reach the quarterfinals.

In men’s matches, No. 2 Michael Chang cruised into the quarterfinals with a 4-6, 6-2, 6-2, 6-1 victory over Andrei Medvedev of Ukraine, and No. 14 Felix Mantilla of Spain beat MaliVai Washington, 7-5, 6-2, 6-1.

Spain’s Carlos Moya, who defeated defending champion Boris Becker in the first round, also advanced to the quarterfinal with a 6-3, 1-6, 3-6, 6-2, 6-4 victory over Jonas Bjorkman of Sweden.

In a late match Saturday, Pete Sampras, determined to avoid becoming a third-round upset victim for the second consecutive year, needed only 79 minutes to eliminate Mark Woodforde of Australia, 6-1, 6-0, 6-1.

Sampras said it was his loss to Australian Mark Philippoussis last year that motivated him for his match against Woodforde.

“Playing a night match here against an Aussie, I came out prepared and ready to go,” the top-seeded Sampras said. “I played a great match and everything was really clicking. You just wish you had days like this all the time. I played pretty much faultless tennis.”

He won 13 consecutive games in one stretch, yielding only 17 points along the way, between the service Woodforde held in the first set and the one he held in the third set.