Tennis Roundup : It’s a Piece of Cake for Agassi on 18th Birthday

Top-seeded Andre Agassi turned 18 Friday and celebrated by advancing to the semifinals of the U.S. Men’s Clay Court Championships at Isle of Palms, S.C.

“Actually, the past two years, now that I think about it, I’ve played unbelievable the week of my birthday,” Agassi said after a 6-1, 6-3 victory over Richey Reneberg.

“When he’s playing that well, there’s not a lot you can do,” Reneberg said. “There aren’t many who hit the ball as hard as he does.”

The match was the first of four quarterfinals. Today, Agassi will meet Lawson Duncan, who downed fourth-seeded Jay Berger, 6-0, 3-0, when Berger retired because of a rib injury.

In other action, seventh-seeded Jimmy Arias beat second-seeded Aaron Krickstein, 6-0, 6-2, and Jim Courier defeated Horacio de la Pena of Argentina, 6-3, 7-6.

West Germany’s Boris Becker, France’s Henri Leconte, Spain’s Jordi Arrese and Sweden’s Kent Carlsson reached the semifinals of the $600,000 West German Open at Hamburg.

Becker beat Argentina’s Guillermo Perez-Roldan, 6-1, 6-3, to set up a semifinal meeting against Leconte, who eliminated Sweden’s Joakim Nystrom, 6-4, 6-2. Arrese, who defeated Argentina’s Guillermo Vilas, 6-4, 6-4, and Carlsson, who beat Switzerland’s Claudio Mezzadri, 6-0, 6-3, will meet in the other semifinal.

At Tokyo, Pam Shriver defeated Peanut Harper, 6-1, 7-5, in the quarterfinals of the Pan Pacific Open.

In other matches, Manuela Maleeva of Bulgaria beat Anne Minter of Australia, 6-4, 6-2; Larisa Savchenko of the Soviet Union defeated compatriot Natalia Zvereva, 7-6, 7-5, and Helena Sukova of Czechoslovakia eliminated Etsuko Inoue of Japan, 6-4, 7-5.