Serena Williams says she was robbed. Replays indicate that she was right.

In the best and most controversial match of the U.S. Open so far, Jennifer Capriati pulled out a 2-6, 6-4, 6-4 victory over Williams with an impressive brand of gutsy tennis – and the help of a few line calls, one of them as inexplicable as you’ll ever see.

It was deuce in the first game of the third set when the normally quiet Williams got into a row with the chair umpire. Williams had just smacked a backhand winner up the line and the ball was called good. Seconds later, though, umpire Mariana Alves announced, “Advantage, Capriati.”

Williams, who had lined up to serve, stood stunned and then looked at the scoreboard in disbelief. Williams got hot under the collar and screamed at Alves. She complained vehemently, but Alves overruled the call on the shot, which landed on the opposite side of the court from the umpire’s chair and was struck with force near the outside line. Replays showed that the shot was clearly good, and may have hit inside the line without even touching it.

“I know my ball was in,” Williams said. “Not only was it in, it wasn’t even near the line. I said how could you overrule a line that far away? It didn’t even touch the line.”

In a statement late last night, tournament referee Brian Earley said the call was incorrect.

“A mistake was made,” the statement said. “Ms. Alves is not scheduled to officiate another match during the 2004 U.S. Open.” It was unclear from the statement whether her mistake caused a change in her future schedule.

In the final game, Capriati benefited from two more close calls. The first came at love-15 when one of Williams’s shots was called long. The second came at deuce after Williams had saved two match points. That time, another Williams shot was called just wide.

On the third match point, Capriati finally pulled out the victory when Williams dumped a forehand into the net. It was her 57th unforced error of the night and indicative of what was a ragged performance throughout.

Afterwards, Williams could not let go of the blown call. She said she was angry and felt like she had been cheated. She said at first she thought it was “another Wimbledon conspiracy,” referring to her sister Venus’s match this year when the chair umpire got the score wrong and cost Venus a point.

“I guess she went temporarily insane,” Williams said of Alves. She said the calls were not the reason she lost, but most of her comments struck a different tone. “I have to give Jennifer credit. She had a good day umpire wise,” she said.

Williams said the bad calls forced her to change her game. “Honestly, I began to think, ‘Okay, well, I’m not going to go for the lines,” she said. “I just thought maybe they would call it out.”

She said wanted a letter of apology from Alves and didn’t want her to call any of her future matches. “I guess the lady didn’t want me to be in the tournament anymore,” she said.

Williams added that she should have put Capriati away in two sets. “I played like an idiot,” she said. Williams also said it was “inevitable” that tennis introduce replay technology into matches.

Capriati said she felt that she had received a few bad calls, too. But questionable calls or not, Capriati certainly out-hustled Williams. Rather than hitting more winners, Capriati turned to defense and won by sprinting back and forth across the court, shot after shot. If she could just get one more ball, it seemed, Williams would make a mistake. Most times, she did.

“I believe that I can win this tournament,” Capriati said.

***

Earlier in the day, Amelie Mauresmo added another fall-from-ahead loss to her growing list of heartbreaking, agonizing defeats, this time succumbing to Elena Dementieva in three sets,4-6,6-4, 7-6(1). It was a match of mood swings and frayed nerves, and Mauresmo found a way to lose even as her opponent hobbled through the final set with an injured leg, cramps, and dehydration.

Mauresmo won the first set and was in control in the second before dropping it. In the third, she broke serve for a 4-3 lead when Dementieva hit one of her 15 double faults on game point. Mauresmo jumped out to a 30-0 lead in the next game and seemed to have the match in hand, but she lost three straight points before Dementieva blasted a backhand winner for the service break.

In the tiebreak, Mauresmo imploded, losing six straight points to drop it 7-1.