Kriek beats Edberg

Press, 16 January 1986, Page 34

Kriek beats Edberg

NZPA-Reuter New York The veteran tennis player, Johan Kriek, volleying and returning serves spectacularly, upset the Australian Open champion, Stefan Edberg, of Sweden, 6-2, 4-6, 6-2, yesterday to reach the quar-ter-finals of the Masters tennis championships. The Wimbledon champion, Boris Becker, overcame a strong start by Paul Annacone (United States) to post a 3-6, 6-3, 6-2, victory before a crowd of 9000 at Madison Square Garden. Becker’s win earned the 18-year-old West German a place in the quarter-finals against the French Open champion, Mats Wilander, of Sweden. Wilander eliminated Scott Davis (United States) 6-3, 6-4, in the open-

ing match of the 16-player single-elimination event which climaxes the previous year’s Grand Prix circuit. Kriek’s quarter-final opponent will be Andres Gomez, of Ecuador, who beat Henri Leconte, of France, 7-6 (7-1), 6-1. Gomez’ victory was particularly surprising. For one thing, he had lost to Leconte in their only two previous meetings. Even more significantly, he had been called on to fill in for the fourth seed, Jimmy Connors, who withdrew from the tournament only five hours before he was scheduled to play Leconte because of influenza. Although Kriek is ranked thirteenth and Edberg fifth, the South African native’s triumph was not a big

surprise since he has demonstrated he is able to hold his own with the world’s best players when he is on top of his game. Annacone, who soared from ninety-fourth to thirteenth in the world rankings last year, scored with 23 volley winners compared with 12 by Becker, who he was playing for the first time. ' But Becker offset those winners with twice as many placement winners, mostly off the forehand side, and greater consistency from the back court as Annacone erred often in the final set on relatively easy shots. Becker said his slow start may have resulted from an outsized pair of tennis shoes.