Gilbert Softens Up Jarryd : Krickstein Also Prevails in Straight Sets

Brad Gilbert has won four tournaments this year, but he never seems to do it the hard way.

Gilbert has spent the year killing them softly, never once bruising the air as he pitches his normal assortment of slowballs at opponents.

Is this Brad Ball?

Anders Jarryd got a look at it Wednesday night.

“He’s very tough to play because he plays very soft,” Jarryd said. “You have to give all the speed yourself. . . . You have to do all the job yourself.”

But Gilbert does darned good work himself and his 6-2, 7-6 (7-5), second-round victory over Jarryd in the Volvo/Los Angeles tournament was fairly representative of Brad Ball.

Pace is what tennis players call the speed with which balls travel back at them. Gilbert is not a pacemaker. He doesn’t believe in something that travels as fast as pace , for gosh sakes.

“He hits soft and soft and soft and suddenly he’s there and hits the ball very hard,” Jarrydsaid. “He’s a very goodplayer.”

Gilbert, whose No. 7 ranking is his best, trailed, 4-2, in the tiebreaker, but got back even at 5-5 and then watched Jarryd commit back-to-back errors to endit.

Whatever Gilbert’s pace, it has taken him into the third round against defending champion Mikael Pernfors. Anything after that? Gilbert’s not saying.

“He’s tough to play, but if you start worrying about the next round, you’ll be on the sidelines,” he said.

Aaron Krickstein, who shot free throws with James Worthy and Michael Cooper in the afternoon, stayed at the baseline a few hours later and beat Ronald Agenor of Haiti, 6-1, 6-4.

Krickstein, a big Detroit Pistons fan, had a chance to try his luck at the free-throw line against a couple of Piston archrivals, a meeting arranged by the tournament.

Soon, Krickstein arranged a third-round date with either Pieter Aldrich or Andrew Sznajder. Krickstein said he thinks his chances of winning the tournament are as good as anyone else’s.

“I have a real shot, but I have to serve better,” he said.

Some found they had no shot at all.

Quicker than you can say Slobodan Zivojinovic, he lost.

Pernfors beat the 26-year-old Yugoslav, 6-3, 6-0, in 55 minutes and advanced to the third round.

Zivojinovic fell when he ran for a drop shot at 3-3 in the first set and play was halted briefly.

Once it resumed, Zivojinovic did not win another game.

Pernfors, who joked after his first-round match that he plays with an injured brain, had no problems with it against Zivojinovic.

“I didn’t need to use it that much,” he said.

There was nothing he could do, Zivojinovic said, partly because of Pernfors’ extreme good luck.

“It is like sometimes you are really feeling hot,” he said. “When he closes your eyes and still hits the ball, well, what can a person do?”

So what will Derrick Rostagno do after losing, 6-7 (1-7),7-6 (7-2), 6-2, to ScottDavis?

“What can you do?” Rostagno said. “Run away?”

Instead, Rostagno is planning to drive away. He is taking his 34-foot mobile home on a scenic trip up the coast to next week’s tournament at San Francisco.

“I’m going to be a little sad and then cheer up, like everybody else,” Rostagno said.

The Santa Monica-born Davis, 27, may have earned the quietest $990,254 in history, with two wins in seven years and none since 1985.

Davis, a 1983 All-American at Stanford, is hoping that the week he spent in Phoenix working on his serve with Ken Walts will pay off.

“I’ve been struggling to achieve my potential and it’s because of my serve,” Davis said.