Tennis Notes: 7 Top 10 players make ATP quarterfinals

Friday, Aug. 9, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

Top-ranked Pete Sampras had to fight off match point to make the quarterfinals of the $2.2 million ATP Championship at Mason, Ohio.

Defending champion Andre Agassi of Las Vegas rallied only after breaking a racket in disgust when he dropped a first-set tiebreaker.

But the field that made it into today's quarterfinals is the strongest the ATP Tour has ever seen.

No other tournament has had seven Top 10 players in the quarterfinals -- at least since 1985, when the ATP Tour started keeping such statistics, tour officials said.

Sampras double-faulted on set point, then rallied to beat doubles specialist Mark Woodforde 6-7 (7-5), 7-5, 7-6 (7-4) Thursday night.

Woodforde played the world's No. 1 player on even terms for 2 hours, 56 minutes -- the longest match of the tournament. But Sampras prevailed and has now defeated Woodforde in all eight of their matches.

"He is real crafty out there, a very difficult guy to play," Sampras said.

"I felt I was serving pretty well most of the match. I just wasn't converting on the break points. I was on the verge of taking control of the match at several points. But I could just as well be sitting here as a loser; he played good enough to beat me."

Woodforde, who won the doubles title at the Atlanta Olympics with Todd Woodbridge, said he finally is getting over the inferiority complex he has always felt playing Sampras.

"I think before I more or less gave up. Mentally it was just a meltdown," Woodforde said. "I think now I try to stand up to him. If he hits a great shot, then I am looking down his throat saying, 'Try again, Buddy.'

"And, you know, obviously he can do it because he is the No. 1 player."

Agassi started slowly against tournament qualifier Alex O'Brien, then smashed his racket and downed O'Brien 6-7 (7-5), 6-3, 6-0.

"It happens pretty often with me," Agassi said of the racket outburst. "I wouldn't really care to admit that, in one sense. But in another sense it is hard to deny it."

In two matches interrupted by a mid-afternoon thunderstorm, third-seeded Michael Chang of Henderson defeated Cristiano Caratti 7-6 (7-3), 6-2 and No. 9 Wayne Ferreira stopped No. 8 Jim Courier 7-6 (11-9), 6-7 (7-4), 6-2.

Earlier, No. 2 Thomas Muster, No. 4 Yevgeny Kafelnikov and No. 5 Goran Ivanisevic moved to the next round. In the other evening match, No. 10 Thomas Enqvist beat Wimbledon titlist Richard Krajicek, 7-6 (9-7), 6-2.

Trailing 6-5 in the first-set tiebreaker, Sampras double-faulted. Woodforde was nearly flawless in the second set until he double-faulted away game 11, giving Sampras the break he needed to tie the match.

The players exchanged breaks in the third set, but got back on serve in game seven. Leading 5-4 in the second tiebreaker, Sampras unleashed a 122 mph serve to reach match point, and Woodforde returned the next serve wide.

Agassi's match was very similar in that he lost a first-set tiebreaker. But then he started dismantling O'Brien, who lost his composure as Agassi poured on the pressure.

"I think I got a little careless at the end of the first and I needed to, you know, establish myself again out there," Agassi said. "I got a little angry and then I managed to use that in a good way."

Muster cruised past No. 16 Jason Stoltenberg 6-2, 6-2. Kafelnikov rallied to beat Chris Woodruff 6-7 (7-5), 6-4, 7-5. Ivanisevic downed Bernd Karbacher 3-6, 6-3, 6-3.

* DU MAURIER OPEN: Monica Seles has a sore shoulder, Steffi Graf a sore knee and Arantxa Sanchez Vicario's elbow hurts. Even Jennifer Capriati has a bad hip. If this week's du Maurier Open tennis championships in Montreal are any indication, the top players on the WTA Tour will limp into the U.S. Open when the last major tournament of the year begins Aug. 26 in New York. "After the U.S. Open I'll see if there are any other treatments besides surgery," Seles said Thursday of the torn lining in her left shoulder. She has played with the injury since the Australian Open last January. "But I don't want to go on every day with this pain." Seles, the top seed and defending champion, showed little discomfort in dispatching ninth-seeded Gabriela Sabatini 7-6 (7-4), 6-1 to reach today's quarterfinals of the $1.3-million hardcourt tournament. Seles, who missed 27 months after being stabbed in the back by a spectator in Hamburg, Germany, in April 1993, has a week to go on her special co-No. 1 status with Graf, who missed the du Maurier with a knee injury that also kept her out of the Atlanta Olympics. World No. 2 Sanchez Vicario needed treatment for a stretched muscle in her right elbow during the first set of a 7-5, 6-1 third-round victory over 10th-seeded Amanda Coetzer of South Africa. Capriati, a former top-10 player on a comeback who looked impressive in winning her first two matches, retired in the second set against sixth-seeded Magdalena Maleeva of Bulgaria. Sanchez Vicario developed her elbow trouble at Wimbledon in June.