TENNIS ROUNDUP : Edberg Earns a Tough Victory

Top-seeded Stefan Edberg won a 2-hour 28-minute war of attrition with Goran Ivanisevic Saturday night and advanced to the final of the Australian Indoor championship at Sydney.

The Swede outlasted Ivanisevic, 4-6, 7-6 (7-2), 7-6 (7-5).

Edberg will face ninth-seeded Brad Gilbert, who rallied to defeat Pete Sampras, 1-6, 7-5, 6-3, in another tough struggle that lasted 2:07.

Edberg improved his record against Ivanisevic to 4-1, but it came down to the final three points after Ivanisevic led, 5-4, in the decisive tiebreaker.

Gilbert, 30, trailed, 1-6, 2-4, before staging a rally against Sampras, a player 10 years his junior.

Elsewhere:

Martina Navratilova set a career record with her 1,310th match victory and advanced to the final of the Milan (Italy) Ladies Indoor tournament against Monica Seles with a 6-2, 3-6, 6-4 victory over Mary Joe Fernandez. Navratilova, who tied Chris Evert’s record of 1,309 match victories Friday, could match Evert’s record of 157 tournament victories by winning the final. The top-seeded Seles advanced by defeating Conchita Martinez, 6-3, 6-3.

At Leipzig, Germany, top-seeded Steffi Graf needed only 37 minutes to breeze past Barbara Paulus of Austria, 6-1, 6-1, in the semifinals. Graf showed no sign of the wrist injury that bothered her earlier in the week. She will play third-seeded Jana Novotna of Czechoslovakia in the title match. Novotna defeated second-seeded Arantxa Sanchez of Spain, 6-3, 6-2.