Tennis Roundup : McEnroe Has No Trouble Beating Crowd Favorite

Second-seeded John McEnroe lost only 12 points on his serve to defeat Todd Witsken, 6-1, 6-0, Friday in the quarterfinals of the U.S. hardcourts championships at Indianapolis.

“I was starting to feel better out there; about 11 more sets and I think I’d be fine,” said the eighth-seeded Witsken, whose match lasted 69 minutes in front of a crowd dominated by fans from the Indianapolis suburb of Carmel, where Witsken grew up and attended high school.

McEnroe won 85% of his 26 first serves. Witsken won only 51% of his 41 first serves and lost 13 of his 17 second serves.

In other quarterfinals, Aaron Krickstein made up for an earlier upset by beating teen-ager Pete Sampras, 7-5, 6-3, and No. 5 Jay Berger outlasted No. 3 Tim Mayotte, 7-6 (7-3), 7-5.

Krickstein, seeded fourth, will play McEnroe in one of today’s semifinals. Berger will play top-seeded Stefan Edberg in the other.

Edberg advanced with a 4-6, 6-4, 7-5 victory over Richard Matuszewski, rallying from a two-game deficit in the final set.

In West Orange, N.J., second-seeded Brad Gilbert overcame a controversial first-set call that led to a crucial service break and rallied to defeat eighth-seeded Ramesh Krishnan of India, 5-7, 6-3, 6-2, in the quarterfinal round of the Swiss Army Knife Open.

The matches were played on the indoor courts at the West Orange Tennis Club instead of the outdoor courts at the Newark Academy because of rain.

In the semifinals, Gilbert will meet fourth-seeded Jim Courier, who downed Jim Grabb of Tucson, 7-5, 6-2.

In earlier quarterfinals, Jason Stoltenberg rode the crest of his victory over Michael Chang and beat Tim Donovan, 6-1, 6-2, and Chris Bailey of England advanced with a 6-3, 3-6, 6-3 win over Mark Brown of Sebring, Fla.