Down Early, Edberg Is Up to No. 1 Again : U.S. Open: He loses the first set but rallies to defeat Sampras, giving the Swede his second straight title and the top ranking.

It was leap year for Stefan Edberg.

Edberg, the stoic Swede with the extroverted tennis game, won his second consecutive U.S. Open Sunday, collected his sixth Grand Slam tournament title, picked up $500,000, snagged the No. 1 ranking in the world and celebrated by executing a perfect leap over the net.

Of course, it was a perfect leap, a two-sneaker landing on the green cement court on which he had spent almost as much time as have the white lines painted on it.

Actually, there wasn’t much that Edberg didn’t do to perfection at the year’s fourth and final Grand Slam event.

His 3-6, 6-4, 7-6 (7-5), 6-2 victory over Pete Sampras only illustrated the skill and resourcefulness he has shown by coming back from so low so often that it seemed anybody looking for him would have to use a metal detector.

“But the longer the match went on, the bigger I felt physically, so you know, I was a bit surprised,” Edberg said. “Mentally I was feeling very strong today, the strongest that I’ve felt all week.”

Sampras didn’t feel all that well after fighting a late night stomach virus coupled with stomach cramps that kept him from falling asleep until 3 a.m. Sunday.

Sampras ran off the court after beating Jim Courier in the semifinals Saturday night. He spent two hours in the tournament referee’s office and was treated with two intravenous solutions.

But Sampras, who also said his shins hurt from playing so much hard-court tennis this summer, didn’t want to use any excuses for what happened Sunday.

“I wasn’t drinking enough, probably, but I definitely had my chances today,” he said. “It just wasn’t enough today.”

Edberg won by being the aggressor--Sampras made 65 trips to the net and Edberg made 133. In fact, in his last two matches, Edberg rushed the net an incredible 387 times.

He finished a remarkable week of comeback tennis by coming back one more time. By now, Edberg has become so accomplished, he probably could give a subway train a head start and still beat it to the next station.

Consider the Edberg track record. He trailed Richard Krajicek by a service break in the fifth set and won in the fourth round. He trailed Ivan Lendl by a service break in the fifth set and won in the quarterfinals. He trailed Michael Chang by a break in the fifth set and won in the semifinals.

Edberg described his road to the title: “Bumpy.”

The only thing that has been in more holes than Edberg is a shovel. But he did it again against Sampras, who won the first set and was serving for the third set at 5-4 right after breaking Edberg.

But Sampras double-faulted the first point and the last point in the game, Edberg broke back, forced a tiebreaker and never looked back.

Sampras, who had 10 aces and 11 double faults, said his problems were obvious.

“My serve kind of let me down a little bit,” Sampras said. “He hit some good shots, (but) I don’t think the level of tennis was all that great, I thought we were both pretty tentative out there, but he came up the better man.”

Sampras came up losing by missing too many chances. He blew four break points for 1-0 in the third set, blew another one for 3-2 and finally converted on the seventh break point of the set for 5-4.

And Edberg promptly broke him back, aided by the double faults, eventually surviving his own double fault at 5-3 in the tiebreaker when Sampras double-faulted right back to present Edberg with two set points.

After enduring an 18-double-fault horror show against Chang, Edberg’s reaction was pretty predictable: “I said, ‘Geez, not again,’ but then he gave me a present back.”

Sampras saved one set point with a sharp cross-court passing shot, but couldn’t get the second one when he knocked a backhand passing shot wide.

At that stage, it was all but over. Edberg scored service breaks for 1-0 and 3-0 and when he slammed an ace down the middle, it was 5-1. Edberg could have begun rehearsing his winner’s speech.

He served for the match at 5-2 and moved to match point when Sampras sent a forehand service return wide. On the next serve, Sampras hit a backhand into the net and Edberg was leaping right over it and shaking his hand.

After 2 hours 52 minutes, it was over.

Edberg took a long time getting back to the final. He needed 24 sets, from the first round through the semifinals, to get to the last match. Only Vic Seixas took longer with 25 sets in 1951.

“I mean, I really earned it this year,” Edberg said. “I have worked very hard and I have had some unbelievable tough matches. But I think that helped me a lot.

“I came in here feeling pretty good and I, at least I said to myself, (to) give it a try, to try to defend it once again. And it is great.”

U.S. Open Notes

Stefan Edberg played 28 sets and won $500,000, which means he earned $17,857.14 each set. . . . Women’s professional tennis shook up the way it does business with an announcement Sunday that creates a unified governing body for the sport beginning in 1995. The Women’s Tennis Council will be composed of equal representation from the International Tennis Federation, the Women’s Tennis Assn., and tournaments. A chief executive officer to be named will be a voting member. Tour sponsor Kraft has a contract with the women’s game through 1994. The agreement to form the WTC is seen as a blow to WTA President Gerry Smith, who had explored breaking away from the power structure so that the players’ association could run their own game, using the men’s group, the ATP, as an example.

Wimbledon champions Gigi Fernandez and Natalia Zvereva took the women’s doubles title, winning the final against the pair they defeated in England, Jana Novotna and Larisa Savchenko Neiland, 7-6 (7-4), 6-1. . . . His five-set semifinal victory over Michael Chang made Edberg the seventh person in tournament history to win three consecutive five-set matches. The others are Dan Goldie in 1986, Roscoe Tanner in 1974, David Sanderlin and Ronald Barnes in 1963, F.T. Hunter in 1915 and Robert D. Wrenn in 1896. No one has ever won four consecutive five-set matches in one year, although Wrenn won four in a row over two years.