Tennis Roundup : McEnroe Breezes, Faces Fleming in Semifinals

John McEnroe breezed to a 6-3, 6-3 victory over Brad Gilbert Friday night in the quarterfinals of the $375,000 World Championship Tennis Shootout at Houston.

Today, McEnroe will face his doubles partner, Peter Fleming, in a singles semifinal. Friday, Fleming never lost his service while dropping Leif Shiras, 6-3, 6-3.

In today’s other semifinal, unseeded Sharir Perkiss, who defeated defending champion Mark Dickson, 7-6, 6-0, will face Kevin Curren.

In the final match of the evening, Curren edged Tim Mayotte, 7-5, 7-6. It was 5-5 in the second-set tiebreaker when Curren wrapped up the match by winning the tiebreaker, 7-5, with a pair of passing shots.

After his win over Gilbert, McEnroe said: “I feel I played a little better than I had been. He’s a good guy to get into the groove against. He hits the ball solid but not too hard. I started off a little slowly, but once I got into the match, I felt I was concentrating.”

Perkiss, who has been playing for just one year since leaving the Israeli Army, beat Dickson, 7-4, in a first-set tiebreaker. In the second set, Perkiss did not allow Dickson a point in the first three games, and gave up only six points in the set to win, 6-0.

At Hershey, Pa., Anne Minter, down, 5-1, in the third set, fought back to take a 6-4, 1-6, 7-6 victory over Stephanie Rehe in the quarterfinals of a $75,000 tournament. Minter came back from a 4-1 deficit to win the first set. In the third set at 5-3, she was down, 0-40, before winning the game at deuce.