TENNIS ROUNDUP : Edberg, Becker Appear Headed for Paris Showdown

It appears that Stefan Edberg and Boris Becker are headed for a showdown in the final of the Paris indoor tournament.

Both won their quarterfinal matches Friday. Top-seeded Edberg beat Jakob Hlasek, 6-3, 6-2, and No. 2 Becker beat Michael Stich, 6-1, 6-2.

In the semifinals, Becker will play Jonas Svensson, who beat sixth-seeded Emilio Sanchez, 7-5, 6-4. Sergi Bruguera of Spain beat qualifier Guillaume Raoux of France, 4-6, 6-1, 6-3, in another quarterfinal and will play Edberg.

Becker beat Edberg in the Paris final last year, but Becker has beaten Edberg in straight sets at Sydney, Australia and at Stockholm, Sweden, in the past month.

Edberg broke Hlasek’s serve in the first game of Friday’s match and broke again in the first and third games of the second set with big service returns.

In the last game, Hlasek fell behind 0-40 and saved two match points before Edberg hit a service return past Hlasek to close it out.

Becker needed only 67 minutes for his 13th consecutive victory at the Paris indoor.

“It’s my best match of the tournament,” Becker said. “It usually gets tougher in the quarterfinals, but for me it’s getting easier.”

Said Stich, ranked 67th: “Today I lost to a player two times better than me. I didn’t have any chances to win a set or the match.”

Third-seeded Zina Garrison, troubled by Marianne Werdel’s power game in the opening set, converted her opponent’s mistakes into a 6-7 (3-7), 6-1, 6-2 quarterfinal victory in a $350,000 tournament at Oakland.

Unseeded Meredith McGrath beat Rosalyn Fairbank-Nideffer, 6-3, 4-6, 6-3.

Accusing the United States of putting television before tennis, Australia has demanded that the timetable for the Davis Cup final at St. Petersburg, Fla., be rescheduled.

The U.S. organizers want singles matches to run from 5 p.m. until midnight on the first day Nov. 30, with play resuming in the doubles at 12:30 p.m. the next day.

Tennis Australia wants the international management committee of the International Tennis Federation to change the timetable. In a statement, Tennis Australia said that after having a shower and massage, speaking to the press, and having a meal, a player would have only “five hours effective rest” before getting up to start practice.

The United States has said its singles players will not play in the doubles, but Australian captain Neale Fraser has not yet announced his lineup.

The Davis Cup committee refused to intervene last month, but Tennis Australia insists that the rules do not give the host country the right to dictate scheduling.

The event will be televised by ESPN.