TENNIS AUSTRALIAN OPEN : Young McEnroe in Semifinals; Seles Advances

Patrick McEnroe, accustomed to being overshadowed by his older brother, John, earned his place in the Australian Open semifinals Wednesday, and then put his emotional 3 1/2-hour victory over Italy’s Cristiano Caratti in perspective with a sense of humor.

“It’s just like you all expected--Edberg, Lendl, McEnroe and Becker,” he said.

Then he smiled, even after the back pain he endured during his 7-6 (7-2), 6-3, 4-6, 4-6, 6-2 victory, the first time he had advanced to the semifinals of a Grand Slam event.

Tears trickled down his cheeks and the crowd rose in a loud, sustained ovation when McEnroe, his torso wrapped in a brace, ended the five-set match.

Barely an hour into the match, serving in the fourth game of the second set, McEnroe felt a shot of pain on the left side of his back. He won that game to go up, 3-1, then called a three-minute injury timeout during the changeover after Caratti held.

A trainer massaged McEnroe and snapped a corset around his back and he played on.

Monica Seles and Jana Novotna reached the women’s finals. Monica Seles held off a dropshot-filled challenge from Mary Joe Fernandez Thursday, 6-3, 0-6, 9-7, after Novotna beat Aranxta Sanchez-Vicario of Spain, 6-2, 6-4.

In her first visit to Australia, Seles saved one match point in the 12th game of the third set, and when a backhand service return by the third-seeded American clanked into the net post, Seles leaped in the air in delight.

Ranked a lowly No. 114, McEnroe isn’t at the same level with No. 1-seeded Stefan Edberg, No. 2 Boris Becker or No. 3 Ivan Lendl, but he’s in the semifinals with them and no one is taking him lightly.

“It’s unbelievable company to be in,” McEnroe said.

“It sounds incredible,” Becker said when learning he would next play McEnroe. “I think immediately of the Great McEnroe.”

The Great One, thrown out of a fourth-round match for misconduct last year, stayed away this year with a strained shoulder. Patrick came instead, and in his second Grand Slam tournament matched his brother’s best here, a semifinal in 1983.

“He has shown he can play great tennis under pressure,” Becker said.

Becker, though, may be far beyond McEnroe’s reach after playing nearly perfectly in beating 10th-seeded Guy Forget, 6-2, 7-6 (7-2), 6-3.

“He would have killed even Ivan or Stefan playing like this today,” Forget said. “When he serves like this, and he goes for so many shots and he makes them, there’s not much you can do.”

Becker acknowledged that he was in top form against Forget, but added, “The only problem is I don’t play like that every day.”

No matter what happens, it will be hard to beat the drama of McEnroe’s victory over Caratti. What it lacked in skill, it made up in spirit.

Caratti also played in pain, with a strained left buttock, but he kept it a secret until the match was over. He said the injury slowed him going to the net, but McEnroe said, “He looked pretty quick to me.”

Caratti, 20, ranked No. 101, had more flair but looked less controlled on court than the McEnroe, 24, a former star at NCAA champion Stanford.

McEnroe remained aggressive until hurting himself in the second set, then relied on his superior serve and Caratti’s mistakes. After the injury timeout, McEnroe held service at love with the help of an ace and a backhand volley that ticked the top of the net and fell over at game point for a 4-2 lead.

McEnroe relaxed a little on Caratti’s service. After Caratti held, the trainer again rubbed McEnroe’s side, trying to relieve the muscle spasms.

Caratti’s errors cost him the final game of the set and gave McEnroe a chance to get out of the match quickly.

But Caratti dug in, tried to make McEnroe run and stretch, and broke him three times to win the third set and then the Italian also won the fourth set.

Novotna’s victory was fueled by her quarterfinal upset of top-ranked Steffi Graf.

“After you beat the No. 1 player like Graf, you start thinking of bigger things,” the 10th-seeded Czech said.