>I have to wonder why Conchita sticks so loyally to Patricia Tarabini ...

Maybe Conchita stays with Tarabini because she's such an emotional release - Particia jokes, laughs, & cuts up during every match (I've ever seen). She takes the pressure of "winning is everything" off her partners. Makes them realize it is just a game & someday the star will be just a 30+ tennis player someday.

I miss Tarabini & Cecchini, tho. Those were great days. Sandra would be so uptight & want to win so badly. Patricia would tell her jokes during points. Sandra would try not to laugh but sometimes couldn't help herself. Other times she'd start swearing in Italian so mad she looked like she was ready to throw a punch at her. Either way, Tarabini would end up with the winner - she's very under estimated as a doubles player.
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Susan J Wise

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ARGENTINIAN Patricia Tarabini yesterday claimed an umpire laughed at her during a heated exchange in a quarter-final doubles match.

Tarabini made the on-court accusation as she argued with English chair umpire Mike Morrissey over a line call. The tantrum, which included Tarabini smashing her racquet against the umpire's chair, lasted for more than 10 minutes and wasn't defused until WTA tournament director Georgina Clark and tournament referee Peter Bellenger arrived at court three.

The match was in the first set with third seeds Lindsay Davenport and Lisa Raymond leading Tarabini and Conchita Martinez 2-1 with the Argentinian serving.

The problem started when Tarabini questioned the cyclops machine going off on a serve which she believed had clearly landed in. Morrissey explained he was unable to overrule the electronic device. As Tarabini continued to dispute the call, Morrissey gave her a warning for unsportsmanlike behaviour before deducting a point for abuse of a chair umpire.

Tarabini not only lost the match 6-4 7-6 but was also fined $1000 for her outburst.

The most amusing match of the day must have been the doubles match between Italians Tathiana Garbin and Silvia Farina, and Conchita Martinez and Patricia Tarabini. The match had already been delayed by a day, and was suspended a total of 4 times due to rainfall. The players played most of the match in a light drizzle, but their on-court demeanour was enough to warm up the fans. Tathiana was her usual dynamic self on court, and had a very strong presence in her first doubles match in ages, while Silvia looked more calm and confident than usual, probably because she'd reached the final in the previous week. Patricia had all sorts of funny expressions going, reminding long-time tennis fans of the Argentine's entertaining on-court antics, while Conchita looked, well, like Conchita.

LJ:Hmmm...let's see...Patricia Tarabini, now there is one...I remember one time she and oh, somebody else, at Amelia Island, just about three years ago. They called the trainer to the court, and mind you, they were not on the Center Court. It was an outside court, and the trainer had to run all the way to this court. I was running, too, to see what in the world was wrong. The trainer and I arrived, and the two on them were sitting during the changeover. The trainer said, "What's wrong, what's wrong?" They said, "We just wanted to know what you were doing for dinner tonight." Can you believe that?

JR: From Patricia, yes. When we were in Houston, last year, at the tournament, she was on the phone, and we walked by to hear her saying, "P.T. calling home, P.T. calling home." So, back to Amelia Island, did they make a date for dinner that night?

LJ: I don't know. We were just so dumbfounded, that we went back to the locker room.

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Several years ago, I can recall watching a doubles match at a Tier II tournament between Steffi Graf and Pam Shriver versus Patricia Tarabini and Conchita Martinez. Almost from the start, it was clear that Steffi was treating the match like an exhibition - with a lot of giggling and loose play - which is something you would never see from her in singles. (Of course, trying to play tennis with a straight face while Patricia Tarabini is on the other side of the net is an impossibility even for the most stoic of personalities.) Anyway, it was clear that Steffi and Pam were not playing their best tennis and I could hear some fans around me grumbling as they sensed this as well. They ended-up losing the match in straight sets.

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Martinez/Tarabini put on such a performance when they play, it becomes difficult to recall the matches without a smile on my face. The night they played against Kunce/Morariu, Patricia got a bad call on Match Point! She was clearly pissed at the line's judge and screamed with frustration. Despite that after winning the match, she went up to the line's judge and ordered him to slap her five. She insisted many times but he refused. Her persistence, however, prevailed and they ended up shaking hands.

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4th Set -- Women's Singles: Mary Joe Fernandez vs. Patricia Tarabini.

Although she has teamed with Conchita Martinez to form one of the more successful women's doubles partnerships of the past few years, Patricia Tarabini no longer makes any of her money from singles play. However, she was pressed into such duty for the Explorers. Fernandez had to be feeling a bit awkward herself, lacking match toughness due to her wrist woes. It was the perennial Top 10 contender who got off to the better start, using penetrating approach shots to earn a service break and a hold. Fernandez put together a run of ten points in a row on her way to a 3-0 lead.

"Gosh, she's having a hard time," one fan observed as Tarabini scrambled to get back Fernandez's accurate shots. Perhaps already convinced that she had nothing to lose, "Pato" started playing to the crowd. She made a mock attempt to distract Fernandez, screaming out as her much higher ranked opponent put away an overhead smash. When Tarabini surprisingly won the game on a Fernandez error, she declared, "that's it for today!" on her way to the chair (changeovers take place after every four games in Team Tennis). She even took a page out of Irina Spirlea's book, deliberately bumping into Fernandez as they changed ends. The humorous move was taken in the right spirit. "We go back together a long way," Mary Joe said after the match. "We're good friends, actually."

Tarabini's fun continued in the fifth game. She lifted her arms in jubilation after hitting a backhand down the line for 15-0 and grumbled "I know it" when her next serve was called a fault. Tarabini requested an air conditioner later in the game -- a pleasantly warm night for those of us in the stands was perhaps a little too warm for players running around under the lights. Still, she held serve with an athletic volley. The Argentine checked the scoreboard and asked, "20-10? That's all?" "No, you have 11," the umpire responded. (The ball kids are a little slow about updating the manual on-court scoreboards.)

Matching her antics with great play, Tarabini did a 360 degree spin during a rally in the sixth game before winning that point with a forehand volley. The rather remarkable display drew a standing ovation from the Kansas City bench and the biggest hand of the night from the New York crowd. Fernandez stopped the bleeding, though, storming back to hold and break for a 5-2 lead. The announcer decided to dedicate a song to Tarabini -- snippets of "Don't Worry, Be Happy" were played in her honor for the rest of the set. After opening the eighth game with a winner, Pato pretended to get fired up. She barked, "Come on! Let's go! Come on! Put pressure!"

Regardless of how much she meant that, Tarabini DID succeed in putting the pressure on Mary Joe. She got the break back and held serve to narrow the gap to 5-4. Tarabini suddenly found herself one point away from a tiebreak, sneaking a touch volley over the net for a 30-40 lead. However, Tarabini then missed a backhand and Fernandez finished the set with a would-be let dropping for an ace. The cheap ace was an appropriately freaky end to a highly entertaining set of tennis. Fernandez raised her arms and grinned from ear to ear, having taken the set 6-4. OVERALL SCORE: NEW YORK LEADS 23-13

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Apparently, Pato is really good at that (doing impressions of other players), Ericha has been forever talking about this impression of Mary Pierce that Pato did and that she found incredibly amusing.

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For De Jager, the WTT match wasn't just about playing tennis; it also was part American Bandstand. During a 10-minute break between the third and fourth sets at the Kansas Expocentre, the 25-year-old South African was out on the court with Explorers teammate Patricia Tarabini and Smash star Luke Jensen, leading dozens of youngsters in dancing to the 1970s hit "YMCA." Then de Jager led the youngsters on a long, winding conga line, with Jensen in the middle and Tarabini bringing up the rear to make sure everyone was included.

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Martinez and Patricia Tarabini teamed up to knock off Lisa Raymond and Rennae Stubbs 3-6, 6-4, 6-4 in a match that lasted two hours and 17 minutes and featured outstanding shotmaking and hustling play from both sides.

Martinez performed especially well, holding her serve six out of eight games under gusty conditions and flustering the opposition with her deadly topspin forehand. It was quite a turnaround for a player who had given an uninspired performance in losing to unseeded Magdalena Grzybowska 7-5, 6-2 in singles earlier in the week.

"It feels great to win," Martinez said. "It wasn't nice to lose in the first round (match). It's hard to make the transition from hardcourts to clay. We tried to make them volley. They played an unbelievable match. We hung in there."

In the first set, Raymond and Stubbs took advantage of a Tarabini first serve that often didn't reach 60 mph on the radar gun and broke her twice. That's all they needed to close out the set 6-3.

Raymond-Stubbs took a 4-3 lead in the second set after breaking Tarabini for the fourth time and led 30-love on Stubbs' serve, but Martinez-Tarabini broke back by winning five of the next six points.

Martinez then held serve and broke Raymond in the next game to close out the set.

Martinez-Tarabini jumped out to a 3-1 lead on the strength of several forehnd winners by Martinez, but Raymond-Stubbs came back to tie the set at 3-all.

In the pivotal ninth game of the match, with the teams tied at 4-4, Tarabini put a forehand volley away at the net. This ended a game that had gone to three deuces and gave Martinez-Tarabini a 5-4 lead. Stubbs had served well for most of the match, registering as high as 100 mph. on the radar gun and recording one of the two aces in the match. Yet her serve would let her down when she needed it most, as her second serve at 30-40 sailed long.

The victory by Martinez and Tarabini was a popular one among the fans. They had cheered the duo throughout the match, recognizing their hustle and Tarabini's animated play.

The Argentinian, after running hard for a ball in the second set, had plopped down in a flower bed located next to the court, prompting the announcer to say,"We will now have a moment of silence."

"I like it when people enjoy the match," Tarabini said. Commented Martinez: "It doesn't happen often that people stay for the doubles. It's nice having the support of the crowd."

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Only two players have been able to cultivate a friendship with Graf: Rennae Stubbs of Australia and Patricia Tarabini of Argentina, both of whom are known on the tour for their lively sense of humor.

Tarabini has tried to persuade Graf to become more outgoing and to take more joy from being No. 1. Graf likes to insist that "I am who I am." To which Tarabini says, "Is 'hello' such a big deal?"

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