Tennis Roundup : Streak-Breaker McEnroe Advances to Stockholm Final

Less than 24 hours after snapping Peter Lundgren’s 15-match winning streak, John McEnroe returned to center court and ended another string to reach the final of the $375,000 Stockholm Open tennis tournament for the fifth time since 1978.

Playing a near-flawless serve-and-volley game, McEnroe defeated the third-seeded Stefan Edberg, 6-3, 7-6, on a Plexipave surface.

McEnroe will play fifth-seeded Anders Jarryd in today’s championship final. Jarryd beat No. 7 Joakim Nystrom, 6-3, 7-6, in an all-Swedish semifinal.

McEnroe’s fourth straight career victory over Edberg broke a 13-match Grand Prix winning streak for the Swede that started in last September’s Transamerica Open at San Francisco.

The 19-year-old Edberg, who became the first player in history to win the Junior Grand Slam when he took the French Open, Wimbledon, U.S. Open and Australian Open junior titles in 1983, is ranked sixth in the world after winning two of his last three Grand Prix tournaments.

Third-seeded Gabriela Sabatini of Argentina overwhelmed unseeded Anne White, 6-1, 6-2, in a 50-minute semifinal match of the $150,000 Florida Federal tournament at Largo, Fla.

Sabatini will play eighth-seeded Stephanie Rehe in today’s championship final for the $27,000 first prize. Rehe upset fourth-seeded Carling Bassett of Canada, 4-6, 6-4, 6-4.

White tried to pressure Sabatini, but the 15-year-old player who turned pro in January consistently passed White at the net.

“I was trying to be accurate on my passing shots, and it worked for me,” Sabatini said.

White got only eight points in the first set, including four straight in the one game she won.

Fifth-seeded Brad Pearce of UCLA and Danny Berg of Cal State Long Beach each scored easy victories to move into the final of the adidas Invitational collegiate tournament at the La Quinta Hotel in La Quinta.

Pearce defeated California’s Steve DeVries, the tournament’s top-seeded player, 6-0, 6-1. Pearce moved to the net behind strong serves and was never seriously challenged.

In the other semifinal match, the unseeded Berg defeated seventh-seeded Dani Leal of Pepperdine, 6-2, 6-4.