Pierce Takes On Fernandez With Shot At Second Straight Title

Mary Pierce will be playing for her second consecutive championship. Mary Joe Fernandez finally reached a final.

Pierce, the 12th seed who won the Italian Open last week, beat Amanda Coetzer 6-4, 6-4 Saturday in the semifinals of the $927,000 German Open.

The 10th-seeded Fernandez, making her fourth semifinal appearance of 1997, beat second-seeded Jana Novotna 6-3, 6-1.

The tournament started with 16 of the world’s top 20 players, but was hit by a rash of upsets. Top seed Steffi Graf, making her comeback from a knee injury after three months, took the most lopsided loss of her career against Coetzer in the quarterfinals, 6-0, 6-1 in just 56 minutes.

For the second time in three weeks, Marcelo Rios and Alex Corretja have reached a major clay-court final and established themselves as top contenders for the French Open starting May 26.

Corretja, the 10th-seeded Spaniard who has emerged as the most consistent clay-court player of the season, outplayed No. 6 Goran Ivanisevic 7-6 (7-5), 7-6 (7-4) at the Italian Open in Rome to reach his fourth final of 1997.

Rios, the No. 7 from Chile, recovered from a breakdown in the third set and won six straight games to beat Spain’s Alberto Berasategui 6-3, 3-6, 6-1 and confirm his status as one of the sport’s rising stars.