Becker gets his sums just right

Tennis

Boris Becker reached the semi-finals of the ATP Tour World Championship yesterday but it needed a pocket calculator to finally determine if the German had qualified.

A 6-4, 7-5 victory over the Russian Yevgeny Kafelnikov earned the triple Wimbledon champion his second victory in the last round of matches in the round-robin group stage.

Becker finished with the same 2-1 record in matches won and lost in the white group as the American world No 1, Pete Sampras, and South Africa's Wayne Ferreira. But Ferreira was edged out of the two semi-final places from the group because he had the marginally poorer record of sets won and lost.

In today's semi-finals of the year-ending championship, Sampras will play Michael Chang while Becker takes on Sweden's Thomas Enqvist, who won the red group.

Sampras won the white group with the best record of 5-2 in sets won and lost. But the two per cent difference in the sets won between Becker and Ferreira in the Festhalle arena was enough, with Becker winning four of his seven sets played compared to Ferreira's five out of nine.

Earlier the former French Open champion, Chang broke a dismal run of form at the event when he reached the semi-finals at his fifth attempt with a 6-2, 7-5 win over his compatriot Jim Courier.

In the women's end of season tournament in New York yesterday, Steffi Graf continued her mastery over the American Mary Joe Fernandez with a 6-3, 6-4 quarter-final victory at the WTA Tour Championships.

The win on the blue carpet at Madison Square Garden put Graf into the semi-finals for the eighth time in 11 consecutive appearances in the 16- player event. The top-seeded German has now beaten the American in all of their 13 encounters.

"Her game is a game I like to play against," said Graf, winner of eight titles this year including three of the four Grand Slams. "Even though she is aggressive, she gives me time to do things."

Anke Huber brought more success for Germany with a 3-6, 6-2, 6-1 win over the sixth seed, Kimiko Date of Japan.