TENNIS ROUNDUP : Chang Heats Up, Wears Down Sampras

Eighteen-year-old Californians Michael Chang and Pete Sampras battled for three hours under a scorching midday sun Saturday before Chang prevailed, 3-6, 7-6 (7-5), 7-5, in the semifinals of the Players International tournament at Toronto.

Chang, winner of the 1989 French Open, hasn’t won a regular men’s tour event. In today’s final, he will face fourth-seeded Jay Berger, who endured 90-degree temperatures to outlast unseeded Jakob Hlasek of Switzerland in the other semifinal, 3-6, 6-2, 6-2.

“The French Open added pressure on me to perform and this summer, I don’t have that pressure,” said Chang, who has also had to overcome a hip injury.

The fifth-seeded Sampras said he blew the match in the last two sets.

“I should have won,” said Sampras, who made 35 unforced errors to Chang’s 17, the most critical in the third set.

Chang won a second-set tiebreaker with the help of a “lucky” backhand return of an overhead smash, but Sampras regained the momentum with a break in the second game of the third set and took a 3-0 lead.

Chang held serve for 3-1 and held a break point on Sampras in the fifth game. When Sampras missed a backhand volley, Chang had a vital service break.

“Till then, I thought I was pretty much gone,” Chang said. “I didn’t have a whole lot of chances to break him and when I did, he came up with that huge serve of his.”

Sampras, a first-time winner in Philadelphia earlier this year, called the shot “stupid.”

“It took the air right out of me,” he said. “I didn’t know where I was on the court.”

Zina Garrison and Jennifer Capriati posted straight-set victories as the United States advanced to the final for the 19th time in the 28th Federation Cup.

The defending champion and top-seeded Americans beat third-seeded Austria, 3-0, and will meet the fourth-seeded Soviet Union, a 2-1 winner over second-seeded Spain in the other semifinal match at Norcross, Ga.

The Soviets took advantage of an injury to Spain’s No. 1 player, Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario, who retired in the second set of her singles match with a twisted ankle.

Garrison, ranked fifth in the world, defeated Judith Wiesner, 6-3, 6-4, to clinch the victory for the U.S., after Capriati beat Barbara Paulus, 6-3, 6-4.