Chang Is Up to Old Tricks in French Win

Rain, cold and Michael Chang continued to dominate the French Open Wednesday, and if that’s not yet as certain a proposition as death and taxes, Chang probably is working on it.

The 16,000 bundled-up fans who came Wednesday to Stade Roland Garros found center court a perfect place to catch both pneumonia and a precocious 17-year-old from Placentia who performs magic tricks with his racket.

Chang’s next act will be in the French semifinals, where no male of his tender age has been before. In fact, Chang is the youngest male Grand Slam semifinalist in 56 years.

So, the eyes of the tennis world are trained on his shock of black hair, and next door, the trees in the Bois de Boulogne park are fairly shaking with anticipation. The pressure must be killing him.

“Nah, not really,” Chang said.

There isn’t that much that gets to Chang these days. He beat Ronald Agenor of Haiti, 6-4, 2-6, 6-4, 7-6 (8-6), in a quarterfinal match sandwiched around a 45-minute rain delay and littered with eight service breaks in the last set.

Meanwhile, Mats Wilander’s defense of his French Open title ended where Andrei Chesnokov’s two-fisted backhands began.

Chesnokov routed Wilander, 6-4, 6-0, 7-5, and became the first Soviet player since 1972 to reach the semifinal round, where he will play Chang.

“I am surprised,” Chesnokov said.

Why is that?

“Because I play so well and beat Mats,” he said.

Wilander, who gathered himself in the third set to take leads of 4-1 and 5-2, was serving for the third set at 5-3 and had a 40-0 lead, but lost.

Wilander changed tactics by attacking the net. But given a target he liked, Chesnokov produced a series of winners on unerring passing shots to finish strongly.

“He did play very well,” Wilander said. “But I did nothing with my shots, and everything he did hurt me.

“I am pleased with the way I played, but I can’t be pleased with losing in the quarterfinals of the French,” he said. “That’s not being fair to me.”

Chang’s match began in the gloom and ended in sunshine. It lasted 3 hours 10 minutes and was over at 3:10 p.m. Was this some kind of message or what?

Chang won in his newly evolving fashion: Worry about muscle cramps, lose the second set, con the other guy into a double fault and play the big points slightly better.

At first, Chang was worried that he might be overcome by cramps again, as he was in his victory over Lendl. He wasn’t, but Chang was still worried, even after he had won the first set. “My muscles were very tight,” he said. “I had that in mind . . . You have that fear of cramping. But as soon as the rain came, I talked to my mom, and she said, ‘The Lord will take care of you.’ That took the pressure off a little bit.”

Agenor applied his own pressure in the second set, busily attacking Chang’s backhand with deep, powerful ground strokes. Agenor closed out the second set and led, 3-1, in the third, with Chang apparently reeling, when the rain began to fall. “Before the rain delay, he was very tired,” Agenor said. “Then he was able to rest and he was in good shape at the end.”

After 45 minutes and one false start that was again sabotaged by rain, the green tarpaulin was removed a second time, and the players at last returned to the court to finish the match.

Chang had resolved to move his feet more and become more active.

“Then, whatever happens, happens,” Chang said.

What happened is that Chang immediately fell behind, 4-1, although that was only one service break. Thirty minutes later, he was serving for the set, which he won, but not without a glitch.

Chang double-faulted at 40-15, then put away a forehand volley cross-court winner to go up, two sets to one.

A clay-court specialist from Port-au-Prince, Agenor reached the round of 16 at both the French Open and the U.S. Open last year with his baseline game. He is fluent in five languages, but in the fourth set against Chang, Agenor couldn’t say much about his serve.

Actually, Chang’s serve wasn’t any better.

Chang broke Agenor in the first game, and Agenor broke back in the second game. Chang held serve to 3-3, which was followed by six consecutive service breaks. Chang coaxed Agenor into a break in the ninth game.

At 4-4 and 15-40, Agenor got ready to hit his second serve, and Chang moved up to a position just behind the service line, the Lendl position. It is where Chang coaxed Lendl into a double-fault on match point Monday.

It worked against Agenor, too. Agenor double-faulted, giving Chang a chance to serve for the match. Afterward, Agenor admitted that he had been bothered.

“It is a mental attack,” Agenor said. “It is an intelligent move, and Chang is an intelligent player, but he will not win Roland Garros that way.”

Chang said he wasn’t trying to insult Agenor with the tactic.

“When you are in a situation where you are desperate to win a point, you do anything to bother the concentration of your opponent,” Chang said.

That must have sounded fair to Agenor. With Chang serving, 5-4, 30-15, Agenor moved way up before the second serve. Chang waited for the noise of the crowd to subside and got his serve in but lost the point. Agenor broke him when Chang hit a forehand approach long.

Chang’s error was the first of a number of crucial mistakes by either player. Agenor lost his serve at love on four consecutive unforced errors, so Chang got another chance to serve for the match at 6-5.

Agenor faced match point at 40-30 but lobbed over Chang’s head. When Chang banged an easy forehand into the net, Agenor had dodged another match point and he eventually forced a tiebreaker when Chang committed three consecutive unforced errors.

“He missed two match balls, but I saved one and he gave me the other,” Agenor said. “But I was never really in control.”

Chang ran off 3-1 and 5-3 leads in the tiebreaker, but Agenor’s drop volley winner, popped long by Chang, tied it. When Chang netted a forehand, he trailed, 6-5.

Agenor hit a backhand from the baseline, but the ball stopped in the net. Chang moved to his third match point on a crisp forehand volley and cashed it in, finally, when he hit a backhand down the line and Agenor returned it into the net.

“This is a Grand Slam, and we were playing on center court,” Chang said. “You are faced with a situation where, if you make the shot, it’s all over, but if you miss, the match could turn around and come back to haunt you.”

Tennis Notes

Psych-out, Part II: Michael Chang said that his tactic of standing right behind the service line on second serves started when he was playing in junior tournaments. “I would always play guys that were older than me,” he said. “They would see this little squirt across the net and they would get a little nervous because of my position behind the service box. It gives the opponent a different perspective and makes him think twice--hopefully.” . . . Ronald Agenor wasn’t totally convinced that Chang’s leg muscles cramped against Ivan Lendl. “I cannot make a positive statement, but it is surprising what he did, or else he has extraordinary physical condition. Or else he was hiding the way things really stood.” . . . The previous youngest male player to reach a Grand Slam semifinal was Vivian McGrath, an Australian, who did it in the 1933 Australian Championships at 16 years 11 months.