Chang, Down 2 Sets, Stuns Lendl in French

PARIS, JUNE 5 — This tennis is a bizarre business. How else can you explain how a 17-year-old who is doubled up with muscle cramps and serves underhanded can come from two sets down and beat the No. 1 player in the world?

Underhanded serve?

"I think that kind of shocked him a little bit," Michael Chang said.

Shock waves reverberated in the French Open today.

After 4 hours 38 minutes of tennis, Chang dropped to the court and lay on his back on the red clay of the stadium court at Roland Garros when Ivan Lendl, the best player in the world, double-faulted on match point.

It was an incredible ending to an improbable victory for Chang, who became the youngest men's quarterfinalist in French Open history.

Chang, at one point during the fifth set, thought he could not go on. But he did, winning a spectacular 4-6, 4-6, 6-3, 6-3, 6-3 decision.

"I was just real fortunate," said Chang, who felt the muscles in both his legs begin to cramp as early as the third set. The pain was not obvious until the fifth set, when he was assessed a point penalty for delaying the game while he took extra time to drink some water.

"Both my thighs were cramping and I wouldn't have been able to play the point anyway," he said.

Sipping water between points and eating bananas while standing through changeovers, Chang tried to soothe his aching muscles and remain calm in the fifth set.

Curiously, Lendl seemed unable to take advantage of Chang's physical condition. Lendl did not change his game, attempting only one drop shot against an opponent in obvious distress.

Chang won the first two games of the fifth set, but Lendl got even, at 2-2, as the cramps limited Chang's court speed to something like a stroll.

Chang, who said he was trying to keep the points short to conserve strength, somehow came up with two backhand volley winners and broke Lendl in the fifth game. The crowd gave Chang a standing ovation.

Lendl broke back to 3-3, feasting on Chang's flatfooted serve, but lost his own serve again. Chang got another standing ovation with his cross-court backhand winner on break point.

Retreating to a defensive position, Chang hit a series of looping moonballs to keep Lendl back. Then, at 4-3, 30-30, Chang served underhanded and won the point when Lendl dumped a backhand volley into the net.

"That {underhanded serve} was a little bit unexpected," Lendl said.

Clearly, at that point Chang was winning the mental battle, too.

Trailing, 5-3, Lendl was now serving to stay in the match. Chang rifled two backhand winners down the line, but Lendl served an ace to make it 15-30. A third backhand winner by Chang brought up match point.

Lendl's first serve was long.

The crowd gasped when Chang suddenly moved in, standing only a couple of feet from the service line as he awaited Lendl's serve. An obviously disturbed Lendl asked umpire Richard Ings to call for quiet.

Chang was only trying to come up with something, anything, that would work for him.

"I did that to make him think," Chang said. "I just stood up there and tried to bother his concentration. I just tried to do whatever I could."

A strange hush fell as Lendl went into his service motion. The ball went up, Lendl's racket came down and the ball thudded into the net.

And Chang flopped on his back. He cried.

Lendl stood in disbelief at the service line, perhaps realizing that his drive toward a fourth French Open title had ended, and with it, his shot at the Grand Slam.

Lendl's defeat was only his third in 39 matches this year. This third-round loss was his earliest exit from the French Open since 1982.

"Give him credit," Lendl said of Chang. "It's very difficult, if not impossible, to play with cramps."

Would he have won if Chang hadn't had the cramps?

"That we will never know," said Lendl, who had 45 unforced errors.

Chang has one day off to recover. His quarterfinal opponent Wednesday is Ronald Agenor of Haiti, whose day went along the same lines as Chang's.

Agenor lost the first two sets to Sergio Bruguera of Spain, was bothered by a cramping stomach muscle during the match, then came back to win, 2-6, 3-6, 6-3, 6-1, 6-2.

Chang became the only U.S. male left when Lawson Duncan and 18-year-old Jim Courier lost. Duncan fell in straight sets to Mats Wilander of Sweden, 7-5, 6-3, 6-2, and Courier, who had upset Andre Agassi Sunday, was eliminated by Andrei Chesnokov of the Soviet Union, 2-6, 3-6, 7-6 (7-3), 6-2, 7-5.