Tennis: US dream faces up to Edberg

The American dream of a male US Open winner with a home accent will have to go on hold. Stefan Edberg reached the final at Flushing Meadow yesterday when he defeated Michael Chang and at the same time stalled a red, white and blue monopoly of majors in 1992. The match lasted 5hr 26min to make it the longest ever in a grand slam tournament.

Edberg, a Swede, won 6-7, 7-5,

7-6, 5-7, 6-4, barring the way of an American victory that would have put all four major titles in American hands for the first time since 1938, when Don Budge completed a Grand Slam while delaying the women's final to a point where the Stadium Court was only three-quarters full when it started. In the end, Monica Seles and Arantxa Sanchez Vicario made a rather undignified entrance, climbing over television cables while Chang was being interviewed on court.

It is American media that has been stirring the patriotic pot by wallowing in the significance of a US win here after Jim Courier's Australian and French Open victories and Andre Agassi's Wimbledon title. The crowd was blatantly pro-Chang, the fourth seed, but it did not inspire Edberg to anything like his best.

The semi-final was a marathon match of epic proportions in terms of its length but a match of inconsistent standard. The server was broken 22 times and for all the occasional moments of inspiration there were long passages of play as ragged as they were fraught with nerves.

'I had chances, he had chances,' Edberg said. 'It was an incredible match. I didn't have any rhythm particularly with my second serve. But Michael returns very well and puts pressure on you.' So much so that Edberg served 18 double faults.

The final set epitomised the see- saw nature of the whole contest. Chang, wonderfully athletic on the baseline throughout, was 3-0 and

4-2 ahead after he had broken the persistently fragile Edberg serve twice. But the Swede, who had managed to look like anything but a winner of five grand slam titles for most of the time, finished with a flourish, winning four games in a row. Even then Chang had two break points in the final game.

At the end Edberg, normally a man who conceals his emotions as well as the direction of his volleys, thumped the air violently. How he had the energy was beyond everyone, for his last three matches had been over 15 sets and lasted just over 13 hours.

Edberg, who will today aim to become the first man to retain the men's title since Ivan Lendl in 1987, had the advantage in terms of experience, 15 grand slam semi-finals compared to Chang's sole last-four appearance in the 1989 French Open, and in terms of head-to-head matches, 10-4 in his favour. But it was Chang who began the better . . . or rather Edberg could hardly have started worse.

The second seed's serve, usually a reliable weapon, kept going off in his own hands and he double- faulted eight times in the first set. Indeed so much rubbish was coming from his racket at the start that Chang, the youngest winner of a grand slam tournament at 17 years three months when he won the French three years ago, was being confounded by the unpredictability of it all rather than anything approaching inspiration.

Nevertheless Chang won the first- set tie-break 7-3. It was a transitory superiority, however, and his own serve, which dawdles over the net as slowly as 65mph (in comparison to Edberg's 100mph plus) began to creak under pressure which cost him the next two sets.

Edberg, with his wayward serving and a volley that was consistent only for its unpredictability, was far from home and, certainly under a hot sun, dry, however. In the fourth set he was 4-1 and 5-2 behind and although he fought back to 5-5 and had a break point to go 6-5 in front he surrendered it 7-5.

The trip into an ultimate set ensured both players were playing their third five-set match since Tuesday but at least the outcome was in their own hands. Seles and Sanchez Vicario had to sit on theirs until nearly 5pm until they were allowed on court. Almost inevitably it was an anti-climactic conclusion to the women's singles.

Seles was 5-0 up in 19 minutes and although Sanchez Viacario became a more troublesome opponent later, the No 1 seed won 6-3

6-3 in an hour and a half. It was Seles' seventh grand slam title and her third of the year but the match became almost an afterthought sandwiched between the two men's semi-finals. 'Super Saturday', a format created for television, is hopelessly flawed.