McEnroe Fiery, but That’s All : U.S. Open: After Courier eliminates him in straight sets, the 33-year-old strongly hints that he is ready to retire from tennis.

If it really was the end of his tournament tennis career beyond this year as John McEnroe hinted strongly, stopping just short of swearing on a stack of rackets, then at least he went out the way he came in . . . grumpy, stormy, argumentative and kicking all the way.

John Patrick McEnroe, at 33, probably said his goodbys to tennis on a mostly cloudy Monday afternoon at the U.S. Open, a Grand Slam event he has won four times, where the gray, threatening sky came close to matching the disposition of the most talented and controversial player of his generation.

There was only one piece different in the McEnroe story that we have come to expect, if not wholly understand. He lost.

Jim Courier, the No. 1 player in the world and 11 years younger than McEnroe, scored a 6-2, 6-2, 7-6 (7-1), victory.

McEnroe acted as if he had just heard the wake-up call for the rest of his life.

“It is pretty clear after this,” McEnroe said.

“You just have to move on. I mean, I played as hard as I could . . . and Jim beat me in straight sets.

“So it is one thing if you have hovered around 10, 20, 30 or onward down (in the rankings), but if you have been No. 1 and then when guys beat up on you, it is really not that tough a decision.”

McEnroe is committed to playing the rest of the year, including Davis Cup and the Grand Slam Cup, but said he ultimately will make up his mind during a three-month vacation beginning in December.

Once again, he sounded as if he had already made up his mind.

“I suspect enough is enough,” McEnroe said.

There were other clues. After the match, McEnroe tossed most of his gear into the stands--shirts, socks, wristbands--nearly everything but his shorts and rackets. If he does decide to play here again next year, he is going to have to get some new clothes.

Meanwhile, old shots--like a big serve--reappeared to rescue Pete Sampras from another tight spot. Sampras worked five sets for the second consecutive match and slipped past Guy Forget, 6-3, 1-6, 1-6, 6-4, 6-3, in 3 hours 10 minutes.

In the quarterfinals, Sampras will play Alexander Volkov, who got past Brad Gilbert in four sets. After a rain delay of an hour and a half, Andre Agassi eventually beat Carlos Costa, 6-4, 6-3, 6-2, and will play Courier next.

Courier’s first really solid match of the Open seemed to offer convincing evidence that he is close to the top of his game again.

Not only did Courier serve with pace--he lost only five points on his first serve--he also hit the ball hard off the ground (47 winners), made few mistakes (12 unforced errors), held 17 break-point chances and gave McEnroe a look at only three.

“Maybe John doesn’t have as many great days as he used to,” Courier said.

Besides the tennis, it was a fairly typical McEnroe day. He complained about line calls. He complained about net cords. He glowered at linesmen. He argued with the chair umpire.

But he reserved his testiest moment for a photographer. During the third set, he told courtside photographer Mark Cardwell of Reuters not to rewind his film during a point.

McEnroe then called for referee Tom Barnes. McEnroe identified the miscreant by pointing his racket at him and the photographer was ejected, but not before making an obscene gesture as he was led away.

Cardwell said he should not have been ejected because the photographer next to him was the one rewinding the film.

Scoffed McEnroe: “If he is even beginning to claim that it wasn’t him, that is just outright--that is not fact.”

This is fact, though: At the end of the match, McEnroe brushed past a CBS crew waiting to interview him. It represented the latest in a series of incidents involving McEnroe and cameras.

Two weeks ago during a tournament in New Haven, Conn., McEnroe knocked over a camera and was fined $3,000.

Maybe it wasn’t McEnroe’s day, but the 1980s certainly were his decade. He won the U.S. Open for the first time in 1979. McEnroe’s Grand Slam collection included the U.S. Open again in 1980, Wimbledon and the U.S. Open in 1981, Wimbledon in 1983 and Wimbledon and the U.S. Open in 1984.

Since then, he has reached only one other Grand Slam final, the 1985 U.S. Open, when Ivan Lendl beat him in straight sets.

McEnroe’s ranking went from No. 1 at the end of 1984 to No. 2 to No. 14 to No. 10 to No. 11 and back to No. 4 in 1988.

He ended 1991 ranked No. 28 after a fourth-round loss at Wimbledon and a third-round defeat at the U.S. Open and began 1992 dropping hints that it could be his last year playing tournaments.

But he made the quarterfinals at the Australian Open and the semifinals at Wimbledon, where he would have made the final if not for Agassi.

At the moment, McEnroe is No. 18.

“The bottom line, I am not as good as the top players,” he said. “I am a step below the top players--Courier, Andre when he is playing well and Pete (Sampras). If they are on top of their game and I am on top of my game, (I) come up short.”

He won’t be coming up short much longer, though. McEnroe knew very well that when he walked off the Stadium Court, it was probably for the last time as a singles player in a Grand Slam event.

“Athletes would probably quit at a different time if they could, but it just doesn’t work out that way,” McEnroe said.

“I don’t need any sympathy--I feel like I am very happy with my career. It is just one of those things.”

U.S. Open Notes

Steffi Graf and Arantxa Sanchez Vicario will meet in the quarterfinals. In 49 minutes, Graf beat Florencia Labat, 6-2, 6-2, which seemed simple enough, but Sanchez Vicario’s 6-0, 6-1, victory over Zina Garrison was ridiculously easy--44 minutes. Garrison won 19 points the entire match, four on Sanchez Vicario’s serve. She also hit six winners, 20 unforced errors and didn’t have a break point. “Now I keep going,” Sanchez Vicario said. Meanwhile, Labat did nothing to surprise Graf except for the fact that she swings a racket left-handed. “To tell you the truth, I thought she was a right-hander,” Graf said. “I didn’t know.” So much for scouting.

In a fourth-round battle of teens, Chanda Rubin, 16, lost to 17-year-old Magdalena Maleeva, 7-5, 5-7, 6-1. Magdalena will play her sister, Manuela Maleeva Fragniere, in the quarterfinals. Manuela came from behind during the second set to defeat Carrie Cunningham, 6-3, 7-5.

Scott Davis was fined $2,000 Monday for abusive behavior after an incident involving John McEnroe at the end of a doubles match Sunday night. Davis, who, with partner David Pate lost to McEnroe and Michael Stich, had taken exception to McEnroe’s comments directed at Davis’ companion, Shaun Stafford, during the match. Upset at Stafford’s cheering, McEnroe had suggested that Stafford “get a life.”