TENNIS ROUNDUP : Injury Forces Mancini to Quit; Sanchez Wins

Spain’s Emilio Sanchez won the Italian Open when a severe groin pull forced Alberto Mancini to quit midway through the third set of the championship match Sunday at Rome.

Sanchez, seeded ninth, was leading, 6-3, 6-1, 3-0, when Mancini gestured that he could not continue.

“It started hurting after the first game of the second set,” said Mancini, the 1989 Italian Open champion who had to play the qualifying round this year.

“I thought it might pass and tried to play through it, but it just got worse. After a while, it was like playing without my legs.”

Mancini started off with a 2-0 lead in the first set, but Sanchez found the range on Mancini’s stinging topspin shots and took command.

Fourteen minutes into the third set, with Mancini hobbling and Sanchez holding a 3-0, 40-0 lead, the Argentine motioned to Sanchez that the match was over and trotted gingerly toward the net to shake his hand.

“It’s not like winning against somebody when you’re both at 100%,” said Sanchez, who earned $181,000. “But we played some good, fast tennis in the first set.”

Sanchez’s sister, Arantxa Sanchez Vicario, defeated Jennifer Capriati, 7-5, 5-7, 6-4, to move into the final of the $500,000 Lufthansa Cup at Berlin, where she will meet top-seeded Steffi Graf.

Graf breezed to a 6-1, 6-2 victory over Jana Novotna of Czechoslovakia in the other semifinal, which lasted only 59 minutes.

Sanchez Vicario had a much tougher time against 15-year-old Capriati.

The American’s two-fisted backhand and change-of-pace play had the Spanish player on the defensive through the first two sets.

But, as happened several times during the past week, rain interrupted play. The third set was delayed at 4-4, and Sanchez Vicario came back after a 30-minute break to win the next two games and the match.

Graf, who has won the Berlin tournament four times, will try for No. 5 today, a German holiday.