Capriati loses to Mauresmo; Serena Williams a win from No. 1

? Jennifer Capriati looked at the big drops falling from the slate sky, eyed the chair umpire, and held up a palm as if to say, “Why are we out here?”

She went ahead and served. Double fault. Another double fault. Serve broken. Concentration cracked.

Out of sorts on a start-stop-start day of rain, her shoulder in pain, Capriati couldn’t summon the resolve that helped her win three major titles in the last 1 years and lost 6-3, 6-2 to No. 9 Amelie Mauresmo in the Wimbledon quarterfinals Wednesday.

That snaps Capriati’s tour-high run of six straight Grand Slam semifinals and sends Mauresmo to a final four encounter Thursday with French Open champion Serena Williams.

The No. 2-seeded Williams had 10 aces and 20 other unreturned serves in overwhelming No. 11 Daniela Hantuchova 6-3, 6-2 in another quarterfinal with no continuity thanks to rain delays.

“Ten aces?” Williams said excitedly, looking at a stat sheet. Then, in what could be construed as a warning, she added: “For me, there’s always room for improvement. Always. I haven’t gotten anywhere close to my potential.”

If she wins her semifinal, Williams will move up to No. 1 in the rankings for the first time, overtaking sister Venus – no matter what else happens in the tournament.

The other semifinal has Venus, the two-time defending champion, against No. 6 Justine Henin in a rematch of the 2001 final. They both won in straight sets Tuesday.

In the only other match finished Wednesday, 1996 champion Richard Krajicek completed a 6-7 (2), 7-6 (4), 6-7 (1), 7-6 (5), 6-4 victory over Mark Philippoussis to make the quarterfinals. They entered the day at two sets apiece, and Krajicek broke serve in the very first game Wednesday, just the third break of the match.

Tim Henman’s quarterfinal against Andre Sa was halted because of rain after the Briton won the opening set 6-3. It will resume Thursday, when the other quarters start: No. 1 Lleyton Hewitt vs. No. 18 Sjeng Schalken, Krajicek vs. No. 27 Xavier Malisse, and No. 22 Nicolas Lapentti vs. No. 28 David Nalbandian.

If each Williams wins Thursday, they would meet in an all-in-the-family major final for the third time in 10 months.

For the first time in a while, Capriati won’t stand in the way.

Her left shoulder and neck were massaged twice by a trainer during changeovers, and it hurt just to toss the ball for serves by late in the match. She thought the 55-degree weather and the interruptions might be to blame.

“I’m definitely not a 16-year-old body anymore,” said Capriati, who’s a decade older than that but normally is indefatigable.

She won last year’s French Open final 12-10 in the third set, and erased a final-record four match points en route to capturing a second straight Australian Open in January.

Referring to the weather, she said: “Everyone’s got to go through it. You just have to know that this is Wimbledon. It didn’t help to be playing an opponent today that was playing the best she’s played in a long, long time.”

Mauresmo, who has a tattoo of an angel on her left shoulder, burst on the tennis scene by making the 1999 Australian Open final, but hadn’t gone beyond the quarterfinals of a major since. She has played spectacularly at the All England Club, dropping just 21 games in her past four matches.

A key has been charging the net. The Frenchwoman, who turns 23 Friday, suddenly realized that while her groundstrokes pack plenty of power, chances of success on grass multiply greatly with effective volleying.

“I knew I shouldn’t let her play her game, do what she likes to do, which is dictating,” said Mauresmo, 1-3 against Capriati before Wednesday. “I took my chances, going forward, and it worked well.”

Talk about understatement. She won the point on 22 of 25 trips to the net.

It might have been a career-boosting breakthrough for Mauresmo, whose left thigh was heavily bandaged.

“My mental was a little up and down. I’m trying to put things together so that I go very far in a Grand Slam tournament. The head has to be good,” Mauresmo said. “It’s experience, maturity, maybe, growing up, learning from what I did.”

The day had the feel of a videotape being repeatedly played and paused. Nearly three hours after play was scheduled to start, Capriati and Mauresmo were told to warm up.

But as they hit the first practice strokes, rain returned, tarps were pulled out and the players sent away for nearly an hour.

When play did begin, Capriati and Mauresmo got just 18 minutes in. Heavy rain was falling when Capriati’s consecutive double faults handed Mauresmo a 4-2 lead.

A 37-minute rain delay was followed by six minutes of action. Then came a delay of 19 minutes.

When they returned for the final time, Mauresmo broke the third-seeded Capriati’s serve twice early in the second set to seal the outcome.

Plenty seemed to bother Capriati, including Mauresmo’s penchant for waiting until the last allowable moment to get back on court after a changeover. Capriati loves to get a rhythm going, and would bound to the baseline quickly after a break.

She also glared at the chair umpire after consecutive serves by Mauresmo were called out by line judges but turned into aces by the overrules in the fourth game of the second set. The calls helped Mauresmo hold serve at love to go up 3-1.

“At that point,” Capriati said, “I just realized things weren’t going my way.”