TENNIS ROUNDUP : Late Rally by Muller Beats Pugh

Gary Muller of South Africa rallied in the third set to beat defending champion Jim Pugh, 6-3, 6-7, 6-3, in the quarterfinals of a $150,000 grass-court tournament at Newport, R.I.

“I don’t think it was my play that won it,” said Muller, who came back from an 0-2 deficit in the final set. “Maybe it was a combination of a little luck, a little bit of my good shots and maybe he didn’t play so well on big points.”

In other quarterfinal matches, seventh-seeded Eric Jelen of West Germany routed 1989 tournament finalist Peter Lundgren of Sweden, 6-2, 6-2; No. 6 Darren Cahill of Australia beat No. 3 Mark Kratzmann, also of Australia, 6-2, 6-4, and Pieter Aldrich of South Africa beat Robbie Weiss, 6-4, 6-1. Earlier, Weiss had eliminated top-seeded Tim Mayotte, 3-6, 6-3, 7-6.

“It’s extra hard when we play each other,” said Cahill, who plays doubles with Kratzmann. “We play together so often that we instinctively move to the spots where we know the other guy is going to hit the ball.”

Martin Jaite, the No. 3 seededplayer from Argentina, eliminated Jim Courier, 3-6, 7-6 (7-5), 6-4, in the quarterfinals of the $305,000 Swiss Open at Gstaad.

Courier, seeded No. 5, appeared on the verge of winning in the second set, but lost his service game at 5-4. He went on to make four unforced errors and lost the tiebreaker. He recovered from a 0-2 deficit to tie the score in the final set but then lost three consecutive games.

Marc Rosset, a 19-year-old Swiss, upset second-seeded Emilio Sanchez of Spain, ranked ninth in the world, 6-4, 3-6, 6-3. In the final set, Rosset broke Sanchez’s serve to make it 3-1 and then used his strong forehand to win the match.

Unseeded Ronald Agenor of Haiti beat defending champion Carl-Uwe Steeb of West Germany, 3-6, 6-2, 6-2.

Marcelo Filippini of Uruguay, who stalled Mats Wilander’s comeback bid earlier in the tournament, advanced to the semifinals of the the $300,000 Swedish Open at Bastad with a 6-1, 6-3 victory over Aki Rahunen of Finland.

Filippini, the 1988 champion who eliminated No. 2 seeded Wilander after a third-set tiebreaker Thursday, will play Sweden’s Magnus Larsson in today’s semifinals.

Larsson beat No. 3 seeded Goran Prpic of Yugoslavia, 6-3, 4-6, 6-3.

Lars Jonsson of Sweden, who upset top-seeded Guillermo Perez-Roldan of Argentina in the second round, routed Finland’s Veli Paloheimo, 6-1, 6-2.

Jonsson will face Richard Fromberg in the other semifinal. Fromberg, seeded No. 4, beat Diego Perez of Uruguay, 7-5, 6-3.

Jennifer Capriati advanced to the semifinals of an invitational tournament at Conway, N.H., but it wasn’t easy.

The 14-year-old from Tampa, Fla., who is seeded first, struggled before beating Stacey Martin, 6-4, 7-5. She will play fifth-seeded Susan Sloane, who defeated fourth-seeded Anne Smith, 6-2, 0-6, 6-2.