AUSTRALIAN OPEN NOTES : Krickstein Joins the U.S. Party

MELBOURNE, Australia —  For the first time since 1979, at the aptly titled U.S. Open, four American men reached the semifinals of a Grand Slam event. Unseeded Aaron Krickstein completed the quartet at the Australian Open with a 7-6 (7-3), 6-4, 5-7, 6-4 victory Wednesday night over Jacco Eltingh of the Netherlands.

Then top-seeded Pete Sampras went even further with a 6-7 (8-6), 6-3, 6-4, 6-4 victory over No. 5 Michael Chang in a semifinal match today.

Sampras, the defending champion who had to come from two sets down in the fourth round (against Magnus Larsson) and the quarterfinals (against Jim Courier), came back from only one down against Chang and won in 3 hours 7 minutes.

Sampras had 48 unforced errors, but his 65 winners made the difference. He had a 20-13 advantage in aces and capitalized on five of 15 break point opportunities.

Sampras broke Chang in the fifth game of the fourth set with a forehand cross-court winner. At match point, Chang hit a backhand into the net.

Sampras will face the winner of Friday’s semifinal between Krickstein and second-seeded Andre Agassi.

Krickstein served well against Eltingh--he had 19 aces--and came to the net with greater frequency than he has in the past, albeit a minuscule number. Eltingh approached the net an amazing 178 times, compared to Krickstein’s 16.

Krickstein knows the game will be much different against Agassi.

“It’s going to be a totally different match, it’s going to be in the heat and baseline,” he said. “He is hitting the ball extremely well from the ground, better than anyone else in the world at the present time.

“But I feel like I’m hitting the ball pretty well too, and I think I’m going to have to serve even better than I did tonight. Again, Andre likes a target, likes guys to come in, which I don’t do, which is to my advantage. But I’m going to have to play one of my best matches to beat him.”