After Jump Start, Stich’s Tank Hits ‘E’ in the Last Mile : Tennis: Chesnokov takes advantage of tiring German in third set. Chang sharp in semifinal victory.

As he said he would, Michael Stich hung up his gone-on-vacation sign, but the timing of his holiday seemed to catch everyone pretty much by surprise.

During a match?

On reflection, Stich said there is a simple explanation for what happened.

“I got tired, I lost, that’s it,” Stich said.

So there you have it. After winning seven consecutive sets, three consecutive matches and averaging 70 minutes a match in the Newsweek Champions Cup, Stich said he suddenly felt so tired, he could offer no more than token resistance after the first set of his semifinal match Saturday against Andrei Chesnokov.

It didn’t seem possible. After rolling through the field like a runaway truck, Stich suddenly acted as if he had been run over by one. The 23-year-old German came from ahead to lose to Chesnokov, 1-6, 7-6 (7-4), 6-3, a stunning reversal of fortune that propelled the Russian with the headache into today’s best-of-five final against Michael Chang.

In the second semifinal, Chang battered Spanish left-hander Francisco Clavet, 6-0, 6-1, in 59 minutes.

Chang mailed 20 winners to various zip codes of the court to reach his second final of the year in his most dominating match since, well, the day before, when he defeated Andrei Cherkasov in straight sets.

While Chang said it wasn’t as easy as it looked, Clavet said it really was.

“Anything I try to do, it was wrong,” Clavet said.

It was hardly a unique feeling. After cutting a wide swath through Chesnokov in the first set, Stich couldn’t have stopped any quicker if he had reached the end of a tether. It was as if he had run into an invisible wall.

Stich held a match point in the second set at 6-5 on Chesnokov’s serve, but steered two backhands and a forehand wide to let slip away what turned out to be his last chance.

He fell apart in the tiebreaker, in which he began with a double fault; then led, 3-1; and won only one more point.

After that, it got ugly.

Said Chesnokov: “He play very bad third set.”

Stich double-faulted at break point to give Chesnokov a 2-0 lead and troubled the Russian no more. Stich’s usually reliable groundstrokes told the story: 67 unforced errors, 58 in the last two sets.

“I just made too many mistakes,” Stich said.

“I feel very tired right now. My legs felt heavy. When you play 14 months of matches without a break, you get tired. Maybe I just had a bad day.”

Actually, that’s exactly what Chesnokov was thinking as he fell out of bed Saturday morning. Chesnokov feared he was the victim of one too many beers and cognacs.

“I had terrible headache,” Chesnokov said. “Everything was go around head. I said I don’t know how I am going to play tennis.”

Chesnokov then launched into a discourse about his health problems:

“I ask doctor, ‘Please, can you do something?’ He give to me pills and I was drinking. I was drinking during the match vitamins. Also bananas. Usually I never eat bananas. But today I was eating bananas. I was just trying to do something.

“I had no feeling at all, and he kill me first set. My feeling was, ‘What can I do?’ ”

As it turned out, the very best thing to do was merely to wait for Stich to tire. But Chesnokov seemed to have a difficult time understanding how Stich could play so little tennis and so much golf this week and still be tired.

“First three matches, he beat everyone so easy,” Chesnokov said. “I don’t know.”

Chang knows what to expect against Chesnokov: the tennis equivalent of running a marathon. He is 3-0 against Chesnokov, including a four-set semifinal victory at the 1989 French Open when he was on his way to the championship.

“Whether it’s three sets or five, it’s going to be a long one, that’s my prediction,” Chang said.

Tennis Notes

Michael Stich is taking one month off before rejoining the IBM/ATP tour in Asia. . . . Andrei Chesnokov said he is impressed by Michael Chang’s play. “Yesterday (against Andrei Cherkasov) he was floating on the court like a butterfly,” Chesnokov said. Chang responded: “He’s trying to get me overconfident or something. He’s been doing a little bit of floating himself.” . . . Rankings game: If No. 36 Chesnokov wins today, he may have enough computer points to get back in the top 20. If No. 15 Chang wins, he could make the top 10 for the first time in two years.