The only difficulty Steffi Graf encountered here in winning her fifth Lipton title, the third consecutively, occurred during the changeovers. Shading herself from the sun in temperatures which reached 120 degrees fahrenheit created something of a problem because the Wimbledon champion has a phobia about umbrellas held by attendants.
It is not, she assures us, a question of superstition or insecurity. "There is no fear. I just don't feel comfortable with somebody standing next to me holding an umbrella for some reason. If I hold it myself, I'm okay." Graf's solution was to sit with her back to the sun and face a firing squad of courtside photographers. "That did bother me quite a bit, but it's better than the sun," she said.
Her opponent, Chanda Rubin, in contrast, found herself put in the shade wherever she moved on the court. She made so many unforced errors that there were times when Graf could almost have played with a racket in one hand and a parasol in the other.
Rubin was defeated, 6-1, 6-3, in 54 minutes, which was disappointing, because the 20-year-old from Louisiana is a player of enormous potential who will today rise three places in the world rankings to number seven. Moreover, she has built a reputation for engaging leading players in marathon matches, partly because of her fighting spirit, but sometimes because she has trouble finishing them off.
Her four meetings with Graf have not even been close straight-sets, with the American accumulating a total of only 14 games. Rubin was a set and 2-0 down on Saturday before her nerves settled long enough for her to make her presence felt with a brief impersonation of Goran Ivanisevic - three consecutive aces, the first off a second serve.
Rubin also applied sufficient pressure to break to love and level at 3-3, Graf double-faulting on the final point. But the American then missed the opportunity to take a 4-3 lead by missing a forehand on game point and mis-directing a volley to lose serve.
Against Monica Seles in the semi-finals of the Australian Open in January, Rubin led 5-2 in the final set before succumbing to the superiority of the player co-ranked with Graf as the world, number one.
"They're both great players in their own right, but Steffi's game definitely presents more problems for me," Rubin said. "She is kind of oppressive and forces you to try to go for a little too much. The match-up is a little bit different. Monica hits the ball, but is a little bit more straight up. Steffi has a slice and can run around and hit the forehand." And when, one wonders, shall we next see those styles directly in opposition? It appears that when Graf is fit, Seles is convalescing, and vice versa.
The Lipton was Graf's second tournament - and victory - of the year. She missed Australia because of a foot operation. Seles damaged the shoulder of her serving arm while winning in Melbourne and is not sure when she will be able to participate in the sixth tournament of her comeback.
As was the case from April, 1993, when Seles was stabbed, to September last year, when Graf defeated her in the final of the United States Open, the women's game is missing their rivalry.
In the men's final third-seeded American Andre Agassi retained his title as Croatian Goran Ivanisevic retired in the first set.
Agassi led 3-0 and 40-0 when Ivanisevic, the sixth seed and winner of four tournaments already this year, quit with a shoulder injury. The Croatian had beaten second seed Pete Sampras in the semi-finals to reach the final.
