TENNIS ROUNDUP : Sampras May Drop Out of Australian Open Lineup With Nagging Shin Injury

U.S. Open champion Pete Sampras may withdraw from the Australian Open because of a lingering shin injury.

The first Grand Slam event of the year begins Monday in Melbourne. Sampras is seeded fourth.

Sampras, of Rancho Palos Verdes, limped through a 2-hour, 27-minute match with Stefan Edberg in the Rio Challenge exhibition tournament today before losing, 6-7 (5-7), 6-3, 7-6 (9-7).

“I’m very concerned,” the 19-year-old Sampras said of his aching leg. “It’s a problem I’ve had for three or four months and it’s not getting any better.

“Do I play in the Australian Open and risk my whole year? That’s the decision I have to make.

“I want to play. It will be a very tough decision.”

Sampras is scheduled to open against Sweden’s Peter Lundgren, ranked No. 64.

The victory by Edberg put the Wimbledon champion into Saturday night’s final against teen-ager Goran Ivanisevic of Yugoslavia.

Czechoslovakia’s Jana Notovna upset top-seeded Mary Joe Fernandez, 7-5, 6-3, today to advance to the semifinals of the New South Wales Open tennis tournament at Sydney.

Fernandez, the 19-year-old from Miami who reached the finals of last year’s Australian Open, committed the last two of her 36 unforced errors as the sixth-seeded Novotna broke her service for the fifth time to take the match.

Novotna, 22, will face seventh-seeded Barbara Paulus of Austria in Saturday’s semifinals. Paulus knocked off third-seeded Manuela Maleeva-Fragniere of Switzerland, 7-6 (7-3), 6-4.