Agassi, Capriati and Davenport Make Semis

M E L B O U R N E, Australia, Jan. 23 -- Patrick Rafter played commandingtennis before his home fans today, winning 12 of the last 13games to beat Dominik Hrbaty in four sets and reach the AustralianOpen semifinals.

The Aussie rebounded from a 4-1 deficit in the third set, thenswept the next one to win 6-2, 6-7 (4), 7-5, 6-0 and set up ashowdown with defending champion Andre Agassi.

"This is what it feels like, huh?" said Rafter, who has wontwo U.S. Opens and was runner-up last year at Wimbledon but neverhad done better at the Australian than the fourth round in 1995."It's been a long time. It feels very satisfying being at homedoing it."

Agassi used his full arsenal to beat Todd Martin 7-5, 6-3, 6-4.Martin already had knocked out Pete Sampras, preventing a rematchof last year's semifinal in which Agassi rallied past Sampras infive sets.

Rafter is the first Australian to go this far in his homecountry's Grand Slam tournament since Mark Woodforde reached thesemifinals in 1996.

He displayed crafty serving and acrobatic volleying. He also washelped by Hrbaty. The No. 14 seeded player double-faulted twicewhen he was broken in the third set's seventh game and once morewhen he was broken again in the 11th.

Capriati, Davenport to Hold Semifinal Rematch

On the women's side, No. 12 Jennifer Capriati rallied from a 4-2deficit in the second set and reached the Australian semifinals forthe second straight year with a 5-7, 6-4, 6-3 victory overfour-time Australian Open champion Monica Seles.

In a rematch of one of last year's semifinals, she facesdefending champion Lindsay Davenport, who beat No. 8 AnnaKournikova 6-4, 6-2.

Kournikova, in a Grand Slam quarterfinal for the first timesince reaching the semifinals at Wimbledon in 1997, had somechances but made too many errors.

Davenport said Kournikova hits very hard and flat, and "doesn'thave a huge margin for error. Sometimes you get a lot of freepoints."

Davenport, seeded second, was called for foot faults severaltimes.