Pioline storms into final

Pioline is a man in form having won his fourth career title in Rotterdam in February — but he has a dismal 4-12 record in finals. He was always in command against the colourful Alami, his aggressive play giving him the win in just 68 minutes.

Pioline, a three-time Grand Slam finalist, will face a man at home in Monte Carlo in the final. Hrbaty has an apartment in Monaco and spends much of his leisure time here. Hrbaty, who is seeking the third ATP Tour title of his career, had to fight hard to wear down 21-year-old Gaudio and reach his first Masters Series final.

The fast-improving Argentine, who reached the semi-finals in Auckland and Santiago earlier this year, was super-cool as he completely outplayed Hrbaty early on. He weakened as the match progressed, and had to receive treatment for an injury to his left thigh in the final set.

“I always believed that I was going to win,” said Hrbaty. “I just kept fighting hard for the whole match because I knew that my chance would come.”

The baby-faced 22-year-old Slovak, who was a suprise semi-finalist at last year’s French Open, has cut a swathe through the field here. “This is one of the best days of my life,” he said. “Ican’t think of any better.”

Gaudio dominated the early proceedings with his languid baseline style and his backhand was particularly effective but the Slovak fought back to take the second set 7-5 and then led 2-0 in the decider before Gaudio broke back after receiving treatment to his injury.

But Hrbaty then reeled off four straight games from 2-2 to seal the win. He said his parents planned to drive through the night from Bratislava to watch him play in the final. Gaudio, meanwhile, was left only with regrets.

“I became a little tired in the second set and I began to feel my leg,” he said. “I couldn’t play very well — but he was able to maintain the same level throughout the match.”

The tournament is the third in the highly-touted Masters Series, following Indian Wells and Miami, but no big names made it through the opening rounds. The finalists have never met before.

HILTON HEAD ISLAND, South Carolina: Top seed Mary Pierce played near-flawless tennis to overwhelm third seed Monica Seles and earn a berth against Arantxa Sanchez Vicario in the final of the Women’s Tennis Association Tournament at Hilton Head Island.

The Frenchwoman beat Seles 6-1 6-1 in 44 minutes on Saturday while Sanchez Vicario, the 1996 champion, defeated second-seeded fellow Spaniard Conchita Martinez 7-5 7-5 at Sea Pines Racquet Club.

Pierce, ranked fourth in the world, has dropped only 11 games in four matches here. The fiancee of baseball star Roberto Alomar, Pierce slugged 25 winners and committed only two unforced errors against Seles. She also delivered six aces with no double faults, and ended the match with a 114 mph (184 kph) ace, her fastest serve ever and her second ace of the game.

Seles managed only one break point against Pierce’s service and said she had never seen her serve so well. As strongly as Pierce served and played, Seles served and played as badly. She double-faulted five times and committed 14 unforced errors.

Seles double-faulted twice in her second service game, falling behind 3-0. She had the break point against Pierce in the next game, but Pierce banged home three straight serves on which Seles could not put a ball into play. “I just felt really flat out there and Mary didn’t give me any breaks to really kind of get myself together,” said Seles, the seventh-ranked player in the world.

Seles would not blame her problems on having playing a quarter-final match Friday night or her heavy schedule of consecutive tournaments at Oklahoma City, Scottsdale, Indian Wells, Miami and Amelia Island before coming to Hilton Head Island.

“Mary is just a better player out there today,” said Seles, who did not lose a set while winning last week at Amelia Island. The loss obviously reminded Seles of her worst ever, a 6-0 6-0 beating by Martina Hingis in the miami semi-finals.

“You try to learn something from every loss or every win,” she said. “Obviously, it’s much harder to take the losses, especially in the semis, that you come out so flat. I had a couple this year like this, but you try to figure out why and just try to work on that so you can’t repeat too many more times.”

Pierce, who suffered a three-set loss to Elena Likhovtseva in the Amelia Island quarter-finals and has a 16-7 record for the year, was happy with the way she handled Seles.

“I played pretty well,” Pierce said. “I think Monica made many unforced errors in the first set, and she missed some easy shots and didn’t serve as well. “Then I think in the second set she tried to come back and I think she picked up her intensity a little bit, but I was pretty focused, pretty disciplined throughout the whole match.”

The first semi-final was not as close as the score might suggest.

From the time Martinez failed to capitalise on her third set point in the 10th game of the first set until she trailed 5-0 in the second set, Martinez managed only one ad point and dropped eight straight games.

Martinez rallied back to 5-5 in the second set as Sanchez-Vicario made a bundle of errors, but once it became a match again Sanchez-Vicario won eight of the next nine points to advance to the final.

“It seems that when I was down 4-2 is when I started playing and getting control of the match and playing really well, moving the ball very well and don’t let her be in the match until 5-0,” said Sanchez Vicario.

Martinez admitted that losing the set points disappointed her. “It was obvious it was all mental,” the second seed said about her 13th loss in 16 matches against Sanchez Vicario.