Edberg

WIMBLEDON, England -- In the end, they all return to the Wimbledon outback, the place where the champs and near champs fall, and the young and the restless rise.Pat Cash was there yesterday, far from Center Court, in the land where the autograph seekers and television sound trucks roam.Cash ruled the joint in 1987, when he won and leaped in the stands to hug his father. But there he was limping on Court 3, a Wimbledon memory in short shorts and a checkered headband. Tape covering his knees and wrists, grunting and groaning, he finally twisted his left ankle in a first-round match, calling it quits against somebody named Dick Norman after losing the first-set tiebreaker.

MELBOURNE, Australia -- It was the sun worshipers who fared best yesterday at the Australian Open, where the courtside temperature crawled toward 100 degrees and putting up a cool and composed front became almost as important as holding serve.The tactic worked well for a pair of unseeded American veterans, Aaron Krickstein and Patrick McEnroe, whose stoicism helped them advance to the third round and, in Krickstein's case, led to a significant upset.The 45th-ranked Krickstein admitted he was only pretending to be unaffected by the heat, a professional bluff that eventually tricked 11th-seeded Wayne Ferreira into a 6-3, 6-7 (8-10)

NEW YORK -- Stefan Edberg is old, quite a feat considering that his 29th birthday is five months away. It is a cautionary tale for anyone aspiring to earn a living playing tennis.Three years ago, Edberg was No. 1 in the world. Two years ago, he won his second straight U.S. Open. Today, at 28, he is old. Still plenty good, one of the world's top players, but very much an old pro. Fighting creaks and doubts. Sounding a lot like someone on the way down, however gradually.What happened to his professional middle age?

WASHINGTON -- Despite heat that hit triple digits, numerous rain delays, sparse crowds and a liquidated field from many top seeds falling early, Stefan Edberg wants to come back to Washington.Why not? Yesterday, Edberg's seven-day stay in the nation's capital produced yet another title and an $87,500 check.Edberg ended the week with a 6-4, 6-2 victory over No. 14 seed Jason Stoltenberg to take the title at the Legg Mason Tennis Classic."I hope to be back next year," Edberg told the crowd as he accepted his trophy.

WASHINGTON -- Of all the people involved in Jason Stoltenberg's athletic career, it was his mother who may have had the most impact on his future.For example, his mother told Stoltenberg -- a rugby fan -- that he couldn't play rugby because he'd get his teeth knocked out. And it was his mother, when he was 10, who introduced him to the game he would make a career of."It was purely a mistake," Stoltenberg said. "[My parents] played tennis socially, and I wanted to try it out. My mom had to show me where to stand and everything.

WASHINGTON -- With seeded players falling about as often as raindrops at this year's Legg Mason Tennis Classic, it seemed only fitting that the luck of the draw pitted the two highest remaining seeds against each other in the quarterfinals and that the day's scheduled matches were interrupted by rain.No. 2 seed Stefan Edberg and No. 8 seed Aaron Krickstein did not anticipate at the start of this tournament that they would be the sole top-10 seeds remaining by the quarterfinals. Nor did either expect that theirs would be the only match of the tournament pitting two top-10 seeds against each other.

WASHINGTON -- Many players believed, before they came to Washington, that the summer heat would be an important factor in their play this week at the Legg Mason Tennis Classic.Stefan Edberg knew the heat -- which reached 100 degrees on stadium court at noon -- could be a problem, but he didn't give it a chance to set in yesterday. In his first match after receiving a first-round bye, Edberg, the highest seed remaining in the tournament, defeated unseeded Alex Antonitsch in just 61 minutes, 6-2, 6-1."

For Pete Sampras, next week's Legg Mason Tennis Classic in Washington, D.C., might offer him something of a home-court advantage.Then again it might not.One thing's for sure, the tournament will be an unusual experience for Sampras. Those boisterous fans cheering on the No. 1 tennis player in the world? Oh, just 40 or so of Sampras' relatives.But Sampras doesn't seem to mind. He's happy to be returning to the area where he was born and spent the first seven years of his life.Sampras, 22, was born about 15 minutes from Washington in Potomac.

WIMBLEDON, England -- Tennis, boring? Don't even think about it.This 1994 edition of Wimbledon is going into the record books as one to remember.A rock 'em, sock 'em upset bonanza.Only four days into this two-week marathon there already have been more major upsets in the first two rounds than ever before here.On Tuesday, women's No. 1 seed Steffi Graf became the first women's defending champion to lose in the first round.On Wednesday, Michael Stich became the first No. 2 seed in 63 years to get knocked out by a qualifier.

NEW YORK -- The wind was swirling and the mist was falling on the Grandstand Court late yesterday afternoon at the National Tennis Center. Stefan Edberg was ignoring the conditions, ignoring the fact that he was behind two sets to one and down a break in the fourth to Karel Novacek of the Czech Republic in their second-round match of the U.S. Open.Edberg, the tournament's two-time defending champion, seemed on the verge of climbing back into the match, of keeping his chances of a three-peat alive, of showing the resilience that wasn't part of his makeup for so many years.