Capriati, Safin advance at Indian Wells

INDIAN WELLS, Calif., March 11 (UPI) -- Marat Safin recovered from a 1-4 third-set deficit and a hole in his sneaker to beat Stefan Koubek, 3-6, 6-3, 7-5, at the $4.55 million Tennis Masters event.

Safin called the trainer in the fifth game of the final set after sliding on the hard courts, ripping open his sneaker, and cutting his foot.

"Easier to call the trainer than a shoemaker," joked Safin, who also received a verbal warning from the chair umpire.

He was confident he would be able to beat Koubek for the second time in three meetings.

"In the third set, when I was 3-0 down, I knew that I have a chance because he cannot play this type of game for a long time," Safin said. "At the beginning of the third set, he was playing great because he was not under pressure, but the problems are coming when you have to close the match, then you start thinking, `What am I going to do now? If I will not go for too much, you'll give my ball back, it's a long rally. What should I do? Should I go to the net, risk it or not?'"

Safin has had trouble closing out matches in his last two tournaments, suffering three-set second-round losses last month at Rotterdam and Dubai. He also has dealt with a pair of injuries and owns a 5-4 match record this season.

Jennifer Capriati, the women's second seed, also was stretched to three sets Monday, but advanced to the quarterfinals with a 6-4, 4-6, 6-1 victory over No. 14 Elena Dementieva of Russia.

"I think she definitely played better in the second set," Capriati said. "Maybe I relaxed a little bit too much when I was up 3-0. I had 40-love or something at one point, and I lost that game. I sort of let her play and got tired there because I was just letting her run me around everywhere. I went in the third set back to my tactic, which was being aggressive and moving her around."

Capriati next faces teenager Vera Zvonareva of Russia, who ousted No. 23 Meghann Shaughnessy of the United States, 6-3, 4-6, 6-2. Zvonareva, playing at this Tier I event for the first time, advanced to her third quarterfinal of the year.

Other winners were No. 5 Amelie Mauresmo of France, who is playing just her third event of the year after being sidelined for four months with cartilage inflammation in her right knee, fourth-seeded Lindsay Davenport, and on the men's side, No. 3 seed Juan Carlos Ferrero, No. 8 Albert Costa, the French Open champion from Spain, No. 9 Jiri Novak of the Czech Republic, No. 14 Sjeng Schalken of the Netherlands, and No. 16 Alex Corretja of Spain, the 2000 winner.