Krajicek: Seeing, but Not Believing : Tennis: He makes every mistake you can make in losing first set, then rallies to beat Chang with two tiebreakers in L.A. final.

The winner was the one who lost the first seven games, missed so many shots he thought his racket might make a good soup strainer, got a sarcastic ovation when he actually hit the ball over the net to a ball boy and whose best swing was when he knocked a flower from a potted plant into the stands.

The loser was the one who never dropped his serve, took the first set, 6-0, and slapped returns so hard they chipped paint off the court.

Go figure. In tennis, the ball sometimes bounces funny ways and in the final of the Volvo/Los Angeles tournament, it bounced straight toward Richard Krajicek.

There is nothing like starting slow and finishing fast, which is the trail Krajicek loped along Sunday at UCLA, where he followed a decidedly uphill path for a 0-6, 7-6 (7-3), 7-6 (7-5) victory over Chang.

Krajicek needed 2 hours 39 minutes to win his second consecutive Volvo/Los Angeles title, despite having absolutely nothing to show for the first set.

A power server, he lost his serve all three times in the set. He joked that he was just trying to inject something new to his game.

“A new approach,” Krajicek said. “I thought, ‘Why start holding my serve from the beginning?’ ”

Krajicek was lucky he didn’t get called for chrysanthemum abuse when he decapitated a flower with his racket. By that time, Chang was sprinting all over the court, running down balls as if he were on roller skates to put up a 6-0, 1-0 lead.

Krajicek felt about as blue as Chang’s sneakers: “It was a little bit sad.”

He felt that way for a long time. Chang faced not a single break point in either the second or third sets and made very few mistakes--until the worst time.

That would be in the two tiebreakers. The match turned on two mistakes by Chang, one in each tiebreaker.

Down, 2-0, Chang popped an easy forehand into the net for 3-0 in the first tiebreaker, which Krajicek eventually closed out with an immense service winner to Chang’s forehand.

The third-set tiebreaker shifted in Krajicek’s favor at 3-3 when he hit a poor volley, but Chang unloaded a backhand passing shot that hit the net.

“Those were nice ones,” Krajicek said.

Krajicek moved to leads of 5-3 and 6-5 and ended the match with a second serve that Chang guided wide.

Krajicek raised both arms in triumph, shook Chang’s hand, then sank into his courtside chair in relief. He knew he was lucky to have played and won five tiebreakers during the week, a streak that included a three-set victory over Jason Stoltenberg after being down two match points.

“I came twice back from the death, actually,” Krajicek said.

It was Chang’s third defeat in the tournament final, a list that includes losses to Aaron Krickstein 1989 and Stefan Edberg in 1990.

Chang had four aces, half as many as Krajicek, but won more of his first-serve points, probably played more consistently and certainly could have enjoyed a different result.

Chang was asked if he would have done anything differently.

“Lose all the points in the first tiebreaker and move them to the second tiebreaker,” he said.

In the beginning, it seemed as though Krajicek’s strategy was to lose every game. He briefly considered what it might look like if he did.

“I was thinking 6-0, 6-0 in the final is not a nice result,” he said.

Krajicek decided to start over when new balls were broken out after the seventh game of the match. He also changed his racket. At that time, he hadn’t won a game.

“I said to myself ‘Now, it’s got to happen. I have got to do something to make a match,’ ” he said. “Fresh start, new attitude, I just pretended I was 1-0 down and just forgot the first set.”

It was the perfect time to have a faulty memory. After that, all Krajicek needed was some luck in the tiebreakers, which he got. But then he had it all week.

And as for Chang losing without dropping his serve, well, that’s tennis, Krajicek said.

“Tiebreakers are a whole new ballgame,” he said. “That’s where the big points are. There are days when you make them. This was just one of the days and one of those tournaments.”

Tennis Notes

Michael Chang’s 6-0 first-set score against Richard Krajicek was the sixth 6-0 set of the tournament. . . . Krajicek earned $39,600 and was the first repeat winner in the Los Angeles tournament since Jimmy Connors in 1973-74. Chang earned $23,330. . . . The week wasn’t a total loss for Michael Stich and Wayne Ferreira. Ferreira, who lost in the first round of singles, and Stich, who lost in the quarterfinals, teamed up to win the doubles title, 7-6 (7-4), 7-6 (7-5), over Grant Connell and Scott Davis. It was the first time this year that Ferreira and Stich played together.