Monica Seles (#2) vs. Meghann Shaughnessy (#8) - Semifinals
Seles leads series 1-0. (2000 Stanford - R16 - 7-5, 6-3, Hard)

Well thanks to the title of this match report, there is little suspense for you to know the outcome of this match. Nevertheless, it was an exciting semifinal this afternoon in Scottsdale and a great story as the only Arizonan on the Sanex WTA Tour advances to the final.

In a move reminiscent of Davenport's yesterday, Shaughnessy won the coin toss and elected to receive. Somewhat auspiciously Seles started off with a double fault but went on to hold her first service game. Seles was able to break Shaughnessy in the sixth game of the first set. Shaughnessy handed Seles the game with several of her shots going long in this particular game. The players held serve for the remainder of the set but the one break was enough for Seles to take the first set at 6-3 in 28 minutes.

The second set held form early on. As in her past matches, Shaughnessy appeared willing to engage in long and hard-hitting rallies. Likewise, Shaughnessy mixed up her shots often throwing in high loopy balls which did not allow Seles to get in a serious groove. Despite Seles's well-regarded ability to rally herself, Shaughnessy was often successful in winning some of these longer points. In the seventh game of the second set, Seles broke the Shaughnessy serve in a particularly long game. Given Seles's history, one could at this point almost pencil in another routine victory for the nine-time Grand Slam champion. Seles went up 40-15 in the next game, but a persistent Shaughnessy was able to level the match with a break on her first opportunity. The players held their serve to set up a second set tiebreak. This is how it went (and please excuse a possible forehand/backhand error on my part, even after watching Seles for over a decade I still have difficulty figure out the two-hander's groundstrokes):

Sh: Forehand wide for Seles, Shaughnessy 1-0.
Se: Seles passes Shaughnessy after a drop shot (or very short reply), 1-1.
Se: Forehand approach from Shaughnessy, Seles returns it strong, Shaughnessy barely gets a racquet on it, Seles 2-1.
Sh: A Seles forehand service return goes wide, 2-2. Sh: Nice serve from Shaughnessy, Seles reply is short, Shaughnessy hits it right back to Seles who passes with a cross court, Seles 3-2.
Se: A Shaughnessy forehand goes long, Seles 4-2.
Se: Backhand long from Seles, Seles 4-3.
Sh: Backhand service return of Seles goes long, 4-4.
Sh: Backhand long from Shaughnessy, Seles 5-4.
Se: Strong forehand down the line from Shaughnessy, Seles replies floats long, 5-5.
Se: Forehand cross-court winner from Shaughnessy, Shaughnessy 6-5.
Sh: Backhand cross-court winner after a 10+ stroke rally, Shaughnessy 7-5.

The second set alone took 1 hour and 11 minutes to complete.

Seles, perhaps dispirited from having had the match slip out of her hands, started off the third set with her service being broken (including one double fault). Seles had a chance to get the set back on serve at 30-40, but some strong serving from Shaughnessy (including a 96mph ace and two 100+ mph service winners) maintained her one break lead. Seles went up 40-0 in her next service game, but ultimately squandered five game points to give Shaughnessy a second break. Seles would again complicate matters in the fifth game going up quickly on her serve but allowing Shaughnessy to get back to deuce. Shaughnessy did not lose her serve in the decisive set and cracked a service winner on her first match point. Despite a 6-2 final set score, the set still took 42 minutes to complete.

The win over the #4 ranked Seles is the best of her career. A jubilant Shaughnessy went over to hug her coach after the match. Tomorrow's final will only be the second of her career after winning Shanghai last year. With the later matches, some official match statistics were also available. Seles won 73% of first serve points, but dipped to 49% on second serves. Shaughnessy was fairly steady on both 62% and 64% respectively on first and second serves. Shaughnessy had 37 winners to 43 unforced errors while Seles had 41 winners to 44 unforced errors. Other stats: aces (Shaughnessy 8, Seles 3), double faults (Shaughnessy 2, Seles 8), break point conversions (Shaughnessy 3 of 7 or 43%, Seles 2 of 8 or 25%), total points won (Shaughnessy 104, Seles 106).

Shaughnessy next meets the winner of the evening session's semifinal between Lindsay Davenport and Jennifer Capriati. Davenport leads the series with Capriati 5-2, including a three set victory as last year's State Farm second round. As noted above, the players last met at this year's Australian Open with Capriati earning her first straight set victory over her countrywoman in the semifinals and en route to her first Grand Slam title. Capriati other win occurred on the hard courts of Sydney in 1997.

Doubles Update

With three of the four seeded doubles teams already knocked out of the doubles tournament, it seems unlikely that any of the remaining teams will be a serious threat to the top-seeded Lisa Raymond and Rennae Stubbs combination. This premier doubles team takes on Hrdlickova/Pisnik, who broke many of fan's heart eliminating Capriati/Seles in the quarterfinals, for a place in the finals in tonight's evening session. They will face the winner of the Japanese duo Asagoe/Yoshida vs. Clijsters and Shaughnessy (who had to play her second match of the day session after defeating Seles).

"Skirt"-ing the Issue: Part Five

The ever-popular Dri-Fit Power Skirt resurfaced in yesterday's quarterfinal matches. In today's update, we introduce what we will simply call "the imposter." Kim Clijsters decided to with a much more neutral version of the omnipresent skirt during her quarterfinal loss to Meghann Shaughnessy. While not have the same eye-catching appeal (or lack thereof) of the "viola/samba" colored-pattern that we have seen all week, the skirt has obviously been a winner with the Nike-endorsed WTA players.