TENNIS ROUNDUP : McEnroe Loses to Novacek After Match-Point ‘Choke’

John McEnroe missed a match point and was given a penalty point for tossing his racket before being ousted in the first round Wednesday at the Eurocard Classics tournament at Stuttgart, Germany.

The unseeded McEnroe held match point against eight-seeded Karel Novacek of Czechoslovakia at 6-5 in the second-set tiebreaker but missed and was beaten, 3-6, 7-6 (9-7), 6-2.

“I choked,” McEnroe said. “To be up match point and lose, that’s a big disappointment.”

McEnroe missed his big chance when he hit a backhand service return wide, and he never had another chance to retake the initiative as Novacek picked up his power game.

“In a sense, I was expecting to win, and I shouldn’t have gone into the match with that attitude,” McEnroe said. “I should have just gone in with a play-well attitude and see what happens.

“I felt like my attitude was a little bit twisted.”

In the fifth game of the second set he was warned for breaking his racket after smashing it on the court. He was given a penalty point in the third set after throwing his racket into the net.

“There was absolutely no reason in the world I should have lost that match, but I felt I was putting too much pressure on myself,” McEnroe said.

McEnroe’s younger brother Patrick also was ousted in the first round, 6-2, 6-0, by Sweden’s Anders Jarryd.

Boris Becker lost his first set to Jonas Svensson of Sweden and was down, 4-1, in the second before rallying to win, 4-6, 7-5, 6-2.

No. 14 Paul Haarhuis of the Netherlands defeated fourth-seeded David Wheaton, 6-3, 7-6 (8-6), boosting to six the number of top-10 seeded players knocked out in the first two rounds of the U.S. Indoor at Philadelphia.

Earlier in the day, Jeff Tarango defeated seventh-seeded Wayne Ferreira of South Africa, 6-3, 7-5, and Francisco Clavet of Spain beat fifth-seeded Derrick Rostagno, 7-6 (7-4), 7-6 (7-5).

In other matches, top-seeded Michael Stich of Germany defeated Michiel Schapers of the Netherlands, 7-6 (7-2), 6-3; second-seeded Pete Sampras defeated David DiLuca, 6-2, 6-1; Martin Laurendeau of Canada upset No. 12 Horst Skoff of Austria, 6-3, 6-4; 15th-seeded Stefano Pescosolido of Italy downed Arnaud Boetsch of France, 7-5, 6-4, and 10th-seeded Amos Mansdorf of Israel defeated Christo van Rensburg, 6-4, 6-3.