McEnroe Opens Tonight Against Noah in Davis Cup

When the slip of paper with his name written on it was drawn Thursday, John McEnroe stepped forward with his hands over his head, like a boxer being introduced in the ring.

Just a splash away from the watery home of Shamu, the killer whale at Sea World, the draw was made for the Davis Cup quarterfinal round between the United States and France, which begins tonight with two singles matches at the Sports Arena here.

The two heavyweights go first. McEnroe and Yannick Noah will play a best-of-five-set match, to be followed by Andre Agassi against France’s Henri Leconte.

McEnroe, who is 3-0 lifetime against Noah, said he was just relieved to know what time he would play so he would not have to wait around. Instead, Agassi is going to have to wait.

“Hopefully I can get a good start and help out Andre,” McEnroe said.

Agassi may need some help. Although U.S. Captain Tom Gorman said it didn’t matter who played first, he almost certainly was relieved that it was his No. 1 player, which should take some pressure off his other struggling singles player.

Agassi, whose ranking has dropped from No. 3 to No. 5 since January, insists his confidence level is not flagging, even though his results say it probably should be.

“But I definitely don’t think I’ve been playing close to par,” Agassi said.

Leconte’s record against Agassi is 2-1, although Agassi won the last meeting, 7-5, 7-5, in the semifinals at Stuttgart, West Germany, last year.

However, Leconte has had as much trouble finding his game this year as Agassi. Leconte has lost in the first round in three of the four Grand Prix tournaments he has played, so he isn’t exactly riding a swell into his match with Agassi.

Nevertheless, Leconte is unshaken in his belief that France will upset the United States.

“No, I am not as confident as before,” he said. “I am more confident.”

The winner of this quarterfinal competition will play either West Germany, the defending Davis Cup champion, or Czechoslovakia in the semifinal round.

Each singles match and the doubles match are worth one point. As Noah said, there are few other considerations.

“The only key is to win three points,” he said.

Saturday, the United States will send its doubles team of Ken Flach and Robert Seguso against an announced team of Noah and Leconte, although France captain Eric Debliker can change the team up until an hour before the match. Flach said he expects to see a different team across the net.

“If John and Yannick have a real long match, I think they’ll substitute Yannick with (Guy) Forget,” Flach said.

Forget, who has been bothered by tendinitis in his knee, was limping slightly Thursday, but he said he is feeling better and will be ready to play.

No matter what doubles team the French field, the outcome is far from settled. Flach and Seguso have not won more than one match in any of the five tournaments they have played this year.

Flach said that he and Seguso have made a lot of progress in practice this week.

“Mostly, we’re just better prepared because we have been able to play this one week far from distractions.”

New this year to Davis Cup is the use of tiebreakers in all but the fifth set. Noah, who has played five sets with regularity recently, acknowledged the importance of his first match with McEnroe.

“If we are going to win this, I am going to have to beat John in the first match,” he said. “I have nothing to lose. I’m going to play my game and give him hell.”

Given his choice, McEnroe would like the U.S. fans to make the Sports Arena a little hot for the French team, and chances are no one can put them in that frame of mind better than McEnroe, with his particularly incendiary brand of tennis.

After taking four weeks off, McEnroe is rested and well. He also said he is focused.

“I’m convinced I do more damage if I’m doing my own thing and have people react to me,” he said. “It’s obvious to me, the style of play is upsetting to people.”

McEnroe pledged to try to continue.

Tennis Notes

The surface for the Davis Cup matches is a rubberized carpet called Supreme Court. It is the same surface on which John McEnroe defeated Ivan Lendl in the championship match of the World Championship of Tennis finals and was brought here from Dallas. The surface will be placed directly on the concrete floor. It is said to be neither fast nor slow, but instead can be be characterized as producing true bounces.

If Robert Seguso and Ken Flach do play Henri Leconte and Yannick Noah in doubles, it will be a rematch of their famous 1985 U.S. Open meeting in which the Americans won in four sets. It was the famous “hair ball” incident, in which a ball was hit at Flach’s head in a critical point of the third-set tiebreaker. The French claimed that the ball brushed Flach’s hair and was thus touched as it went long. Flach claimed he had ducked out of the way and that the ball had sailed over the baseline. Flach and Seguso got the decision, won the tiebreaker and then won the match by taking the fourth set, 6-0, as Noah and Leconte played listlessly in protest.

No computer points are awarded in Davis Cup play, so Andre Agassi’s No. 5 ranking and McEnroe’s No. 6 will be unchanged. Noah is No. 12 and Leconte No. 13. . . . The last time McEnroe played Noah, he won, 7-6, 6-2, 4-6, 6-3, in the 1987 WCT tournament.