TENNIS ROUNDUP : McEnroe Climbs Over Srejber in Switzerland

Third-seeded John McEnroe beat Milan Srejber, 6-4, 6-3, Wednesday night to advance to the second round of the Swiss Indoors tournament at Basel, Switzerland.

McEnroe, ranked 11th in the world, dominated the Czechoslovak, who ranks 70th.

Jimmy Connors was not as fortunate. Connors, who did not play in the U.S. Open because he said he was not in shape to win it, was defeated by Michael Stich of West Germany, 7-6 (7-4), 6-3.

Second-seeded Goran Ivanisevic of Yugoslavia struggled before beating Alexander Volkov of the Soviet Union, 7-6 (7-4), 6-1. Ivanisevic, a last-minute entry, is the highest remaining seeded player after top-seeded Andres Gomez of Ecuador was upset by France’s Jean-Philippe Fleurian on Tuesday.

But the crowd’s attention clearly focused on McEnroe, billed by Switzerland’s leading sports newspaper as “perhaps the best player of the century.”

In the second round, he will face Niklas Kulti of Sweden, the world’s No. 1 junior player last year. Kulti eliminated fellow Swede Christian Bergstrom, 6-4, 6-4.

Second-seeded Aaron Krickstein beat Dan Goldie, 6-2, 6-3, in the second round of the Queensland Open tournament at Brisbane, Australia.

In a first-round match, Carl Limberger of Australia beat Marty Davis, 7-6 (7-4), 3-6, 6-4.

Limberger lost a qualifying match, but gained a “lucky loser” berth in the main draw when seventh-seeded Paul Haarhuis of the Netherlands failed to arrive at the Milton Tennis Center.

A domestic aircraft refuelers’ strike made Haarhuis, who played in the Davis Cup in Canada over the weekend, miss his connecting flight from Sydney.

Eighth-seeded Eric Jelen of West Germany, Robby Weiss of and John Fitzgerald of Australia also had second-round victories.

Jennifer Capriati moved into the third round of a tournament at Tokyo with a 6-2, 6-4 victory over Magdelena Maleeva of Bulgaria.

Second-seeded Monica Seles, the French Open champion from Yugoslavia, defeated Eva Pfaff of West Germany, 6-1, 6-0. Seles, 16, is seeded second.

Capriati, 14, was happy with her performance. “I played much better than yesterday because I made fewer errors,” Capriati said. “I played at 75 or 80% and will be at 100% at the end of the week.”

In other second-round matches, Katerina Maleeva beat Gigi Fernandez, 6-7 (8-6), 6-2, 6-2, and Amy Frazier defeated Eva Sviglerova of Czechoslovakia, 6-2, 7-5.

Steffi Graf of West Germany started slow but still defeated Italy’s Laura Golarsa, 6-3, 6-2, in the second round of a tournament at Leipzig, East Germany.

Golarsa took to a 3-1 lead, but Graf dominated the rest of the set and won it in 30 minutes.

Tarik Benahbiles of France upset top-seeded Emilio Sanchez of Spain, 7-6 (7-1), 6-4, in the first round of the Sicilian Open in Palermo.

Fourth-seeded Horst Skoff of Austria was another upset victim, losing, 3-6, 7-6 (8-6), 6-1, to Francisco Clavet of Spain.