TENNIS / MEN AT L.A. : Krickstein Feeling a Little Better, 7-6, 7-6

Is this bad luck?

Aaron Krickstein is in a taxi in New York and it is sideswiped by another car, cracking his ribs.

Krickstein is in Paris getting out of a car and his father slams the van door on his hand.

Krickstein is in Deerfield Beach, Fla., and he steps on a tennis ball, twists an ankle and is out for six weeks.

In his career, Krickstein has had surgery on a knee and foot and near-countless injuries to ankles, elbows, ribs, hands, fingers and neck. On most of these occasions, he was forced to the sideline, but the night last November that Herb Krickstein accidentally closed the door of the van on his son’s hand, Krickstein played anyway and beat Yannick Noah in the Paris Indoors.

Krickstein said the van door was closed all the way.

“I’ll bet my fingers were in there for 2 or 3 seconds,” Krickstein said. “I thought for sure they would be down to the bone. I couldn’t really move them for a couple of hours, but then they were just sore and I played. It was kind of amazing.”

It was also something of a surprise to see Krickstein show up Monday for his first-round match in the Volvo/Los Angeles tournament devoid of bandages, braces, pads, casts or crutches.

Not only did Krickstein win a close match, 7-6 (8-6), 7-6 (7-4), over Dan Goldie, he was actually free from injury. Sort of.

“Well, my arm’s a little sore,” Krickstein said.

The 1989 Volvo/Los Angeles champion finished that year No. 8, but a continuing series of minor injuries dropped him to No. 20 at the end of 1990. Krickstein is ranked No. 50, but he was still No. 20 when he reached the quarterfinal at Milan in early February.

A week later, Krickstein was practicing in Florida, stepped on a tennis ball and twisted his ankle. He has not reached another quarterfinal this year, but Krickstein is hoping for the best.

“It won’t be easy, but I still have a lot of tournaments to play this year,” he said. “If I can stay free from minor injuries. . . . I’m still relatively young (24), so maybe in 10-12 months I can get my (ranking) back up there.”

Against Goldie, Krickstein ran into an opponent with even worse luck than his. Goldie has not won a match since April and his ranking has nose-dived to No. 138. He was out for four months, from October through January, because of shin splints and has been slow to get his game back in gear.

“I don’t have too much confidence, let’s put it that way,” Goldie said.

This seemed evident in the first-set tiebreaker when Goldie took a 4-2 lead, built on strong serves, then couldn’t make another first serve.

In the second set tiebreaker, Goldie made errors on five of the seven points Krickstein won.

However the match turned out, Goldie knew enough to recognize something vaguely familiar on the other side of the net.

“We’re both kind of in the same boat,” Goldie said. “Neither one of us were playing like we were trying to win. When you get that tight, it’s hard to hit out because you feel like you’re going to miss. . . . He seemed a little tense.”

Maybe so, Krickstein said.

“It’s been a struggle all year for me,” he said. “After I twisted my ankle, I came back too soon. I played when I shouldn’t have been. That was probably a mistake. I still feel it on the hard courts.

“And you’ve got to figure that the breaks are going to go your way sometimes.”

Notes

Fifth-seeded Cristiano Caratti didn’t stay around very long. The 21-year-old Italian fell to Scott Davis, 6-3, 6-2. Davis said Caratti may have been affected by unfamiliar surroundings. “It’s sort of a different atmosphere thing,” Davis explained. Davis teams with David Pate to form the best doubles team in the world after John Fitzgerald-Anders Jarryd. Excelling in both doubles and singles is difficult, Davis said: “It just goes to show how great (John) McEnroe really was--to win all those doubles and still be No. 1 like he was, that’s just really tough to do.” . . . Now concentrate and follow Jim Pugh’s explanation of how he lost his concentration during his 4-6, 7-5, 6-1 defeat to Jean Philippe Fleurian: “I did lose my concentration, it was in the second set, but I didn’t realize it. When I realized I lost it, it was gone in the third set. Then I wasn’t too into the match.” Wild-card entry Pugh, leading, 5-3, in the second set, lost nine consecutive games. He still has doubles though and will team with Javier Frana of Argentina. Frana is substituting for Pugh’s regular partner, Rick Leach, who is busy playing TeamTennis for Newport Beach. Pugh said he is looking forward to a new partner, even if he is temporary. “Rick and I walk on the court and it’s the same old thing,” Pugh said. “(Teaming with Frana) is just something new that makes it a little more exciting.” Although they have plummeted in the doubles rankings--Pugh is No. 17, Leach is No. 20--Pugh said they have no plans to disband. “Our year has certainly been less than we hoped for, though,” Pugh said. . . . Paul Annacone, another wild card, lost to Jason Stoltenberg, 6-1, 6-3. “I just need some more matches,” said Annacone, who had foot surgery in June.