INDIAN WELLS, March 8: Steffi Graf took another small step on the road back to the summit of tennis with a second-round victory in the $ 1.25 million Evert Cup.Graf, the former world number one who has fallen to 45th in the world as she battled back from a knee injury, defeated Thailand's Tamarine Tanasugarn 6-4, 6-0 yesterday to preserve her perfect singles record at Indian Wells, where she won in 1994 and 1996.The German celebrates the 10th anniversary of her golden slam - when she won all four Grand Slam singles titles and the Olympic gold - this year.Nowadays, it's 17-year-old Swiss Martina Hingis who racks up the victories without a thought.Davenport, the defending champion and second seed, eased to 6-3, 6-1 victory over fellow American Amy Farazier in the second round.Sixth seeded Irina Spirlea of Romania, who like all the top eight had a first-round bye, advanced with a 7-5, 6-2 victory over Li Fang of China.Tenth-seeded Belgian Dominique Van Roost, who has reached the final in fourof the six events she has entered this year, won her first-round match against 14th-seeded Brenda Schultz-McCarthy of the Netherlands 6-7 (2-7), 6-3, 7-6 (9-7), while unseeded American Sandra Cacic, ranked 65th in the world, ousted seventh-seeded Frenchwoman Nathalie Tauziat 1-6, 6-2, 7-5.Awesome Agassi winsSCOTTSDALE: Andre Agassi moved a step away from a second straight title, dashing the childhood dream of Tommy Haas yesterday with a 6-2, 6-1 victory in the semi-finals of the ATP Tour event here.German Haas, 40th in the world to Agassi's 50th, said before the contest that he had always hoped to get a match with the 27-year-old Agassi, now storming through a comeback after dropping well out of the top 100 in a lethargic 1997 which yielded only 12 winning matches in 12 months.When Hass finally got his chance, he was overwhelmed.Agassi broke Haas early in the first set, did it again for 5-2 and began the second set with a break thanks to Haas' third double-fault of the match.
