From: clin@eng.umd.edu (Charles Lin)
Subject: US Open - Tuesday night results (spoilers)
Reply-To: clin@eng.umd.edu (Charles C. Lin)
Organization: College of Engineering, Maryversity of Uniland, College Park
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1992 18:26:30 GMT

   Man, my last article got zapped.  Anyway, I will focus mostly
on the night matches.  A quick comment about the Edberg-Krajicek
match.   Actually, Krajicek doesn't hit his others shots besides
his serve too badly.  You can't just have a great serve and nothing
else (Chip Hooper and Eric Korita showed that).  Neither
player was playing at the top of their game, from what I
could tell.  Edberg was especially having problems on his
serve, double-faulting some 13 times.  Krajicek couldn't get
a very hard second serve in (though his first was fast).
Edberg was down early a break in the fifth.  He then attempted
to break, but had to wait til the next Krajicek serve to
break, when he made a lunging backhand return which floated
past Krajicek (who had let it go) and well in.  Edberg
almost gotten broken again, falling behind either 15-40 or
0-40, and almost lost the game at 30-40 when a pass by
Krajicek landed barely out.   

    The night match featured Washington and Chang.  Chang
took the first set 6-2, the Washington took the next two.
Chang was making quite a few errors in this match, as
Washington looked solid, but Chang was able to turn it
around by getting a break in the fourth and running
away with it in the fifth, 6-1.   Washington has a
fairly poor five set record, being 1-5, though all
the five setters are against tough players, mostly
in Grand Slam events (losses to Lendl at Wimbledon,
and to Stich twice).  Chang advances to play Ferreira,
who took Sanchez down in four sets.  Ferreira is a bit
more aggressive than Washington and has a very good
forehand which he can swing for angles.  He's pretty
consistent of the backhand.  This ought to be a tough
match, but Chang has to like seeing Ferreira rather than
Edberg or Lendl.

   The Becker Lendl match was supposed to have been played
as the third match on stadium court, but due to the
lengthy Edberg-Krajicek match (some four hours) and the
equally lengthy Fernandez-Sabatini match, it was pushed
to the Grandstand court at night, which dismayed those
who had day tickets.

   This match was also a five set thriller.  Becker took
the first set 7-6, then Lendl stormed back 6-2, then
Becker took the third, and Lendl took the fourth on an
early break and had chances to break again.  He then
held a tough game at 15-40 in the fifth, and then
finally broke Becker, and served out the match.

   Lendl tried a somewhat different strategy against
Becker.  Normally, Lendl tries to gun returns down,
and has a tendency to miss a lot of returns that way.
He decided to chip nearly all of his backhand returns
and force Becker to at least make the initial volley.
He kept at this strategy throughout the match, despite
making a few errors.  Becker, meanwhile, was upset,
especially toward the end of the match.  He kept talking
to himself, and to the umpire.  He claimed Lendl was
intimidating the officials (he glared at a linesman at
one point, and the linesman had overruled his/her own
call in favor of Lendl) and trying to delay Becker's
serve by talking to the linesman, and waiting for
people to sit down.  While this may have been gamesmanship
on Lendl's part, Becker should have expected it since
Lendl does this all the time.  Lendl always plays slow 
and complains.   

   I think Becker just self-destructed though.  He
was missing plenty of first serves at the end, and
making quite a few errors.  Still, Lendl didn't
always take advantage of Becker's second serve and
so the match was kwpt quite close.  Lendl has to 
be pretty happy about this (though he hardly showed
it) since he has never beaten Becker in a Grand
Slam event (and it's been four or five time already).

   Life doesn't get much easier for Lendl though since
he now faces Edberg who he lost a three set match in
the Volvo event a few weeks ago.   While Edberg did
not play so well against Krajicek, you would still
have to favor him since he isn't consistently playing
that poorly.  It ought to be close, but Edberg will
be a tough one to beat.  Whoever wins this will probably
be favored to get to the finals, though Chang-Ferreira
should also prove tough.

--
Charles Lin
clin@eng.umd.edu
Newsgroups: rec.sport.tennis