TENNIS ROUNDUP : Ivanisevic in ATP Semifinals After Victory Over Edberg

Goran Ivanisevic fired 20 aces and beat Stefan Edberg for the sixth time in a row to reach the semifinals of the ATP Tour World Championship on Friday at Frankfurt.

Ivanisevic won the error-filled match, 7-6 (7-3), 6-7 (7-5), 6-3, and will meet Michael Stich in today’s semifinals.

“Whenever he came close, I hit an ace,” Ivanisevic said after reaching the semifinals for the second consecutive year.

Edberg, the tournament champion in 1989, served nine double-faults, had only three aces and hit 35 winners to Ivanisevic’s 59. The Croatian also had 27 service winners to Edberg’s four.

Pete Sampras, the top-ranked player in the world and the 1991 tournament champion, will face Andrei Medvedev in the second semifinal.

Stich beat Jim Courier, 7-5, 6-4, and will replace Sampras as No. 2 in the world if he wins the tournament.

Stich had a 3-0 match record in leading his group while Courier, second in this event the last two years, dropped to 0-3.

Earlier Friday, Sampras beat Sergi Bruguera, 6-3, 1-6, 6-3, in a match that had no impact on the final group standings in the round-robin portion of the tour-ending, $2.75-million event.

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Eighth-seeded German Anke Huber maintained her perfect record against fourth-seeded Conchita Martinez of Spain to advance to the semifinals of the $3.5-million Virginia Slims Championships at New York.

Huber, a first-time qualifier in the elite 16-player season finale, defeated Martinez, 6-3, 6-3, to set up an all-German semifinal with top-seeded world No. 1 Steffi Graf today.

Arantxa Sanchez Vicario, rallied in the evening quarterfinal match to defeat Jana Novotna, 6-7 (7-2), 7-6 (7-2). Sanchez Vicario will play Mary Pierce in today’s second semifinal. The unseeded Pierce reached the semifinals in her first trip to this season-ending tournament by upsetting four-time winner Martina Navratilova on Thursday night.