WIMBLEDON : McEnroe Puts in Long Day to Bring Down Wilander

On a wind-swept Wednesday afternoon, John McEnroe blew across a patch of grass and into the Wimbledon semifinals.

There are many ways to win a tennis match, and McEnroe chose the hard way. As Princess Diana and the Duchess of York, the former Sarah Ferguson, looked on, McEnroe worked his way out of a royal mess.

He labored 3 hours 52 minutes before angling his way past Mats Wilander of Sweden, 7-6 (8-6), 3-6, 6-3, 6-4, in a match where missed chances and blown opportunities littered the court.

Break points piled up until they numbered 48. Serves were broken 17 times. Out of this chaos, McEnroe emerged, which seems only natural.

Those who thrive under such circumstances, as does McEnroe, can see them coming.

“I knew it was going to be one of those days,” he said.

The power brokers of tennis had their day in the quarterfinal round, marked not only by McEnroe’s mental toughness, but also by the strength of Boris Becker’s serve, Ivan Lendl’s good fortune and Tim Mayotte’s bad luck.

Becker blasted nine aces on his way past Paul Chamberlin of Del Mar in a ruthless display of heavy-handed tennis, 6-1, 6-2, 6-0.

“I didn’t give him any chance,” said Becker, who will play Lendl in the semifinals.

Lendl played the big points slightly better than Dan Goldie of McLean, Va., whose pulled hamstring prevented him from getting any closer than a 7-6 (10-8), 7-6 (7-4), 6-0 defeat.

As for Mayotte, his fate might have been sealed by an umpire’s ruling in the second-set tiebreaker against Stefan Edberg, who won 7-6 (7-2), 7-6 (14-12), 6-3.

It was 11-11 in the tiebreaker when Mayotte hit Edberg’s first serve into the net just as it was called long by a linesman. Chair umpire John Frame overruled the linesman but, instead of playing the point over, gave it to Edberg.

Mayotte argued the call with Frame and asked for referee Alan Mills to come out. Mills refused to get involved in Frame’s ruling.

“My reading is that it’s the only ball he overruled during the whole match,” Mayotte said.

“I was a little disillusioned at that point. I shouldn’t have let it get to me but I did.”

It was a judgment call by the chair umpire and therefore not in the referee’s jurisdiction, Mills said in a statement released later.

“Mayotte returned Edberg’s first serve into the net and a late call of out on service was given,” Mills said in the statement. “Therefore, in the umpire’s judgment, the call came after Mayotte hit his shot, and Mayotte was not impeded in his stroke.”

McEnroe, who will play Edberg in the semifinals Friday, struggled with his serve against Wilander. Only 47% of McEnroe’s first serves were good.

Luckily for McEnroe, his volleys knew where to go. Once free of serving, McEnroe found the net a convenient location to win the match.

“I felt like I had to hang in there mentally and hope for something good to happen,” McEnroe said.

After saving one set point, a forehand volley winner at 6-6 in the tiebreaker put McEnroe within his own set point in the first set, which was his as soon as Wilander dumped a forehand into the net.

The third set went to McEnroe when, on set point, his lunging forehand volley was just out of Wilander’s reach.

Holding serve was never a riskier business than in the fourth set. McEnroe blew two break points for 1-0 and Wilander blew one for 2-0. McEnroe broke Wilander to 4-3, but Wilander broke back to 4-4.

McEnroe missed two more break-point opportunities before he finally converted the third and at 5-4, he served for the match.

It was routine from there. McEnroe’s drop volley set up match point and a service winner finished it.

“I just think that my style of play suits this surface and his style is better for the clay courts--his defensive style, a great counter-puncher,” McEnroe said.

“I felt like he played well, but I just stayed with him.”

Goldie knew there was no way he could stay with Lendl, not with the way his hamstring felt. Injured while practicing Tuesday, he could only watch as Lendl returned his serves to either side, making Goldie run.

“It just got worse and worse until I couldn’t hardly move,” Goldie said. “I just played one of the biggest matches of my life and to be injured, it’s kind of depressing.”

Perhaps remembering what Michael Chang did to him in Paris with muscle cramps, Lendl did not feel like offering condolences to Goldie.

“I didn’t worry about it too much,” said Lendl, who had 21 aces.

Becker played as if he hadn’t a care in the world. The match lasted 1 hour 34 minutes, which was only 21 minutes longer than it took McEnroe and Wilander to complete their first set.

“The guy was just bombing me,” said Chamberlin, who watched as Becker’s big first serves blew past.

Chamberlin won a total of 13 points in Becker’s 11 service games and four of those were double faults.

Chamberlin was asked when he knew he was in trouble.

“When he started serving,” Chamberlin said.

Tennis Notes

Learning of John Fitzgerald’s criticism of him after their fourth-round match, John McEnroe described the Australian’s comments as sour grapes. Fitzgerald was angry that McEnroe created a disturbance in the first set of their match Monday and held up play unnecessarily. McEnroe, to the surprise of no one, didn’t see it that way. “It’s easy to walk in after you lose a match and sort of make it seem like I was the guy that was trying to pull this number on them,” he said. “So for him to walk in and make this one incident that occurred around a remark that went on for maybe a minute or so and make that seem like the whole match was like that . . . it really doesn’t concern me that much.”