TENNIS ROUNDUP : McEnroe Gets Good Draw at Wimbledon

Stefan Edberg and John McEnroe, who have five Wimbledon championships between them, have relatively clear paths to a fourth-round clash this year.

The draw Tuesday left the 16th-seeded McEnroe, a three-time champion who lost in the first round last year, with seemingly little to worry about in the first three rounds.

McEnroe plays Jaime Oncins of Brazil in the opening round. If he wins, his next opponent would be a qualifier and the best of his potential third-round opponents is clay-court specialist Horst Skoff.

Defending champion Edberg, seeded No. 1, has a slightly tougher route.

His first match is against 6-foot-5 Marc Rosset of Switzerland, a hard server who is ranked 34th but is more comfortable on clay than the Wimbledon grass.

Edberg could face American David Pate in the second round, with good grass-court player Christo Van Rensburg a possible third-round opponent.

The winner of a possible Edberg-McEnroe match could go on to face eighth-seeded Pete Sampras or No. 10 Goran Ivanisevic. Jimmy Connors, 38, the two-time champion who is a wild-card entry this year, also is in the Sampras-Ivanisevic portion of the draw.

Boris Becker, who has won the Grand Slam event three times, is in the opposite half of the draw along with Ivan Lendl and Andre Agassi.

Second-seeded Becker faces former Davis Cup teammate Carl-Uwe Steeb in the first round and could battle nemesis Brad Gilbert in the fourth round.

Lendl, seeded third, will begin his annual quest for the title he has never won against Kelly Evernden of New Zealand. Lendl could face clay-court specialists Jakob Hlasek in the fourth round.

“Lendl is in my mind a danger,” Becker said. “He wants the title more badly than any other player in the competition and he goes a long way every year.”

Agassi, playing in the event for the first time since 1987 and seeking to win his first Wimbledon match, opens against Canadian Grant Connell. He could face Patrick McEnroe in the fourth round if the younger McEnroe gets past 11th-seeded Emilio Sanchez, a clay-court specialist, in the opening round.

If the seedings hold, the men’s quarterfinal matchups would be: Edberg vs. Sampras, Agassi vs. Lendl, Jim Courier vs. Michael Stich, and Becker vs. Guy Forget.

Martina Navratilova said she hopes the International Tennis Federation will allow her to play in the Olympics next year, even though she has not met the eligibility requirements.

“I would love to play because it will be my last chance,” Navratilova, 34, said during a break at the Eastbourne grass-court tournament.

The ITF said earlier that Navratilova will be ineligible for the Barcelona Games because she declined to play in the Federation Cup next month.

The rules state that players must make themselves available for the Federation Cup or Davis Cup in order to qualify for the Olympics, ITF spokesman Ian Barnes said.

The Federation Cup, to be played July 21-28 in Nottingham, England, is the top women’s team event and the equivalent to the men’s Davis Cup.

Also ineligible for the Olympics will be Gabriela Sabatini, who cited a scheduling conflictfor missing the Federation Cup.

Navratilova did not lose a game to Laura Golarsa, winning, 6-0, 6-0, in the second round at Eastbourne.

Navratilova, who needed just 34 minutes to win her first-round match on Monday, took 41 minutes to beat Golarsa.

Second-seeded Arantxa Sanchez Vicario beat Andrea Strnadova, 6-3, 6-2; third-seeded Mary Joe Fernandez defeated Sara Gomer of Britain, 6-2, 6-2, and fourth-seeded Jana Novotna defeated Robin White, 6-1, 6-3.

Seventh-seeded Nathalie Tauziat of France lost to Heather Ludloff, 3-6, 7-6 (9-7), 6-3, and Pam Shriver ousted sixth-seeded Helena Sukova, 7-5, 6-4.

Rain washed out play at the men’s grass-court tournament at Manchester, England.