CARLSBAD, Calif. -- Jennifer Capriati defeated Monica Seles in a third-set tiebreaker Sunday to earn her first title of the year at the $225,000 Mazda Classic, costing Seles the world's top ranking.
Capriati won 4-6, 6-1, 7-6 (7-2) in the battle of teenagers to allow Steffi Graf to reclaim the top spot. Graf missed this tournament, which she won last year, with an injured shoulder.
Seles, 17, had been the No. 1 women's player since March 9 and will drop to second.
The final featured the youngest combatants since the Open era began in l968 -- Capriatiis 15 -- but both played like crafty veterans, exchanging baseline blasts throughout the 1-hour, 57-minute dogfight.
Seles struggled to take the opener with a second and decisive service break in the ninth game, when her cross-court backhand drive grazed the sideline for a winner. She served out the set and shouted 'yes' as Capriati netted a backhand service return.
Capriati stormed back to a 5-0 lead in the second set with spirited and aggressive baseline play.
Capriati, who jumped two spots to the No. 8 ranking, broke in the first game with a cross-court backhand winner and carried a 2-0 lead in the decisive third set.
She took a 5-3 advantage before Seles held and got the break in the 10th game to tie the match 5-5.
Seles took the opening point of the tiebreaker but Capriati took control after a 2-2 deadlock to win the match taking the last five points.
After unloading a match-ending forehand Seles couldn't return, Capriati ran into the courtside seats to her parents.
'I kept fighting til the end,' said Capriati, who added her second career title along with the $45,000 and a new sports car to the Puerto Rico Open she won last year.
'I wanted to control it and not let her go for it. I stayed in there all the way.'
Capriati had lost two previous matches against Seles but beat her in an exhibition match two weeks ago in Mahwah, N.J. She said she fed off that match.
'I said to myself, 'If I did it there, there's no reason I can't do it again.''
'I went out there to play my game. I was hitting my groundstrokes well, serving well and got to the net.'
Seles, who has been recovering from painful shin splints and a mild stress fracture to the left leg, wasn't surprised at the calibre of play.
'We are both fierce competitors, and we always produce great matches. Jennifer played a great match today. She was just hitting the ball out there. She's pretty much playing at top level. In the tiebreaker, she just jumped off,' said Seles.
'We're both great fighters. It was a great match even looking at it as a player. Neither of us wanted to let it go.'
Seles, 44-5 this year, collected $20,200 as the runner-up for the fifth time in nine finals this year.
'Being No. 1 is great,' Seles said. 'It's not so emotional, you never feel it. I never thought about it when I was No. 1. But I knew that it was at stake today.'
