MEN’S TENNIS / LOS ANGELES TOURNAMENT : Krajicek, Sampras Power into Semifinals

What is the best way to beat the molten lava game of Pete Sampras? Hope his racket melts? See if his serve gets a speeding ticket? Get him jailed for ball abuse?

Actually, the method favored by Richard Krajicek is a simple one: “Hold serve and break him once every set.”

That would be the traditional way, and Krajicek will get his chance to try it today in the semifinals of the Volvo/Los Angeles tournament.

Actually, Sampras is sort of a traditionalist in his thinking, too. Once he thought about it, Sampras couldn’t disagree with Krajicek’s plan.

“That pretty much sums it up,” he said.

Sampras crosses rackets with Krajicek in a match suitable for either a tennis court or a runway. It is a battle between big hitters who back up these serves that could knock down buildings with these volleys so sharp they require bandaids.

Sampras lost his serve twice, served six double faults and still managed to sweep past Patrick McEnroe, 7-5, 6-2, in one hour, 13 minutes.

It took a lot longer--2 hours, 21 minutes--for Michael Chang to defeat Aaron Krickstein, 4-6, 6-3, 6-2, in a semifinal under the lights.

Krickstein lost his serve six times after serving for a 4-1 lead in the second set.

For Sampras to do well against the power-serving of Krajicek, he’s going to have to put a lot more on his second serve than he did against McEnroe, who offered an honest critique of Sampras.

“He played a couple of sloppy games,” McEnroe said.

There won’t be much room for error against Krajicek, who is ranked No. 10. The only thing louder than his serve are his tennis clothes.

“It is a good test to see where I am at,” Sampras said. “It’s going to just kind of tell me how I’m playing.”

He offered a couple of viewing tips: “There aren’t going to be too many service breaks. We aren’t going to have the longest rallies in the world.”

In their only previous meeting, Krajicek double-faulted twice in a second-set tiebreaker, and Sampras was grateful to walk off with a victory and a thoughtful characterization of the encounter.

“That was a pretty interesting match in my mind,” Sampras said.

Krajicek, who craves sushi and pasta, ate up only 66 minutes in his 6-1, 6-4, demolition of Alexander Volkov.

After knocking 10 aces past Volkov and saving the only two break points he faced, Krajicek seemed bothered more by the surface of the court than what Volkov did while standing on it.

“It’s like sandpaper, the court,” he said.

That’s because it was resurfaced only last week.

And it may be next week before Volkov finally tracks down some of the serves Krajicek bounced off it. Volkov didn’t help himself very much, putting less than half his first serves in play, but Krajicek said it isn’t unusual to see Volkov bouncing around between highs and lows.

Sampras wasn’t really hot and he wasn’t really cold in his match against McEnroe. He was sort of temperate.

But six double faults will make you feel that way.

“I was just off a little bit, just wasn’t sharp,” Sampras said. “Hopefully it’ll get better tomorrow.”

Tennis Notes

The top-seeded doubles team of brothers Luke and Murphy Jensen were upset by Brad Pearce and Jim Pugh in the quarterfinals, 3-6, 7-5, 7-6 (7-5). The Jensens, French Open doubles champions, blew a 5-2 lead in the tiebreaker. Pugh is attempting an unusual trifecta--a third consecutive Volvo/L.A. doubles title with three different partners. Pugh and Javier Frana won in 1991, and Pugh and Pat Galbraith won in ’92. Pearce and Pugh had not played together since 1986. . . . Richard Krajicek withdrew from the doubles because of a sore right knee, moving Grant Connell and Scott Davis into the semifinals against Pearce and Pugh. . . . Steve DeVoe, U.S. Open tournament director, said the U.S. Tennis Assn. will put a linesman on every line at the Open to supplement its electronic line-calling system. DeVoe said the decision was made after requests from both the men’s and women’s players. “I told our people we’d better listen because these two sides never agree on anything,” he said. The electronic line-calling system, set up on the U.S. Open’s four main courts, was originally supposed to eliminate all linesmen.