TENNIS AUSTRALIAN OPEN : Capriati Is Playing Less as She Moves On

Jennifer Capriati swept into the fourth round of the Australian Open with her easiest victory yet, overwhelming fellow American Katrina Adams, 6-0, 6-0, on Saturday.

Making her debut here, Capriati, the 15-year-old fifth-seeded woman, played almost flawless tennis against the outgunned Adams and has yet to drop a set in three matches. With the 35-minute outing, Capriati has spent less that three hours on court.

“She made a lot of errors,” Capriati said. “She didn’t play as well she can. I really didn’t have to do that much.”

Capriati is on a collision course with No. 2 Gabriela Sabatini, who also won easily, 6-1, 6-0, over Australia’s Jenny Byrne. If they win their fourth-round matches, Capriati and Sabatini will play each other in the quarterfinals.

No. 7 Mary Joe Fernandez, a finalist here two years ago, faltered in the second set of her match against Australia’s Rachel McQuillan before prevailing, 6-2, 1-6, 6-1. She is the only seeded player remaining in her quarter of the draw, following the withdrawal of No. 2 Steffi Graf and the loss Saturday by No. 15 Helena Sukova to Dominique Monami of Belgium 2-6, 6-4, 6-4.

A grumpy Michael Stich, still struggling to find the form that carried him to the Wimbledon title last year, survived another sub-par outing to advance to the round of 16.

Fourth-seeded Stich advanced with a 6-0, 2-6, 7-5, 6-2 victory over Martin Jaite that neither player was likely to keep in his scrapbook.

Stich looked to be en route to an easy day when Jaite could do nothing right in the first set. Jaite then broke twice to start the second set before Stich got back in gear. Although his serve wasn’t sharp, he dropped only six points in the next eight service games, three on double faults.

Stich was complaining all the time, first to the officials about the “Cyclops” machine that makes service line calls, then to himself about his 58 errors.

“I didn’t play too well,” he said. “But I won. That’s the important thing.”

Unseeded Aaron Krickstein continued his mastery of long matches by coming back from down, 2-1, in sets to oust Alexander Volkov, 6-4, 5-7, 6-7 (2-7), 6-1, 8-6, in four hours. Krickstein is 22-6 in five-set matches.

MaliVai Washington, who beat No. 16 Goran Prpic in the second round, fell to Australia’s Wally Masur, 6-3, 6-3, 6-4.

The top seeded players, Monica Seles and Stefan Edberg, scored third-round victories Friday, and neither showed signs of nagging injuries.

Seles said her strained neck felt fine in a 6-1, 6-1 third-round blitz of Yayuk Basuki.

And Edberg, suffering from a lingering cold and coming back from several minor injuries, rebounded from service breaks early in the first and third sets to oust Australian John Fitzgerald, 7-5, 6-1, 6-4, and also advance to the round of 16.

But Patrick McEnroe’s luck in this Grand Slam event, in which he reached the semifinals last year, ended. Russia’s Andrei Chesnokov, in trouble after the first three sets, switched rackets and his luck to win, 6-4, 1-6, 1-6, 6-1, 6-3.

With No. 3 Boris Becker, the defending champion, ousted by John McEnroe, 6-4, 6-3, 7-5, only seven of the 16 men’s seeded players remain in the draw. Twelve of the 16 seeded women are left.

No. 5 Ivan Lendl, a two-time champion, overcame the service blasts of 6-foot-5 German Markus Zoecke to advance, 6-4, 6-4, 7-6 (8-6).

David Wheaton, the No. 15 seeded player and winner of $2 million in the Grand Slam Cup last month, beat Lars Koslowski, 6-4, 6-3, 6-3.