TENNIS AUSTRALIAN OPEN : Seles Pressured in Victory; Chang Loses

Defending champion Monica Seles survived her first taste of pressure at the Australian Open, but her victim in last year’s final, Jana Novotna, fell amid a flurry of double-faults against teen-ager Anke Huber.

Seles overcame an unusually high number of errors, 52, and seemed surprised by the net-attacking strategy of Leila Meskhi. But Seles recovered her poise to break Meskhi three times in the final set and reach the quarterfinals with a 6-4, 4-6, 6-2 victory Sunday.

John McEnroe began his fourth-round match against Emilio Sanchez immediately after Seles’ victory. It was 124 degrees on the court when they started playing, and McEnroe took the first two sets, 7-5, 7-6 (7-4), before dropping the third, 4-6. He was down, 1-3, in the fourth.

“I wasn’t going for my shots, I wasn’t attacking and I wasn’t pumped up,” Seles said. “I was serving pretty well in the first set and early in the second. It sort of went. I don’t know what happened. It was pretty windy.”

Seles said she’d have to put the match out of her mind when she plays Huber, a German who is also 18. Seles beat Huber in the quarters last year.

Novotna, who blew her first opportunity beat Huber while serving for the match at 5-4 in the second set, saw her chances vanish when she served with a 4-2 lead in the third set. Novotna double-faulted three times and lost the last five games to give Huber a 5-7, 7-6 (7-5), 6-4 victory.

“I play better under pressure,” Huber said. “The third set she was injured a bit. She had cramps.”

Huber said there is no pressure on her in playing Seles, who beat her easily last year.

Seles served poorly in the second set as 13th-seeded Meskhi sent forehands deep to her backhand, then came in to put volleys away at the net. Meskhi broke Seles at love for a 5-3 lead in the second set, and again at 15-40 in the 10th game when Seles made four unforced errors.

It was the first set Seles had lost in four matches, and she responded by bearing down harder, grunting louder and hitting deeper, more accurate groundstrokes.

Seles broke Meskhi in her first two service games of the third set for a 3-0 lead, holding her own service in between with her seventh ace on game-point. Though broken at love in the fourth game, Seles won the last three games of the match to close it out.

“I changed my tactics,” Meskhi said. “I played more at the net today, and I think this surprised her. You have to move her around and come to the net if you want to beat her.”

In another early match Sunday, 15th-seeded David Wheaton lost to Wayne Ferreira of South Africa, 6-7 (3-7), 6-4, 6-2, 6-2. Also, Amy Frazier beat Dominique Monami of Belgium, 6-3, 6-4.

On Saturday, second-seeded Jim Courier reached the fourth round with a 6-1, 6-4, 6-2 romp over Thomas Muster.

Courier, winner of the French Open and runner-up at the U.S. Open, has an unseeded path to the semifinals, where he could face sore-armed Wimbledon champion Michael Stich.

Michael Chang, who had an 11-2 record in five-set matches, fell in a three-hour, see-saw battle to Richard Krajicek, 6-4, 6-1, 5-7, 1-6, 6-3.

Aaron Krickstein, another long-match specialist, ran his five-set record to 22-6 by ousting Alexander Volkov, 6-4, 5-7, 6-7 (2-7), 6-1, 8-6, in four hours.

Chang lost the first two sets to Krajicek, who was serving for the match at 5-4 in the third. But Krajicek’s game suddenly fell apart on two double faults as Chang broke to start a string of nine straight games.

When Chang held to take the fourth set in only 23 minutes, Krajicek looked dejected, his 125-m.p.h. serve faltering and his groundstrokes erratic.

Somehow, he ended the lapse and began blasting aces again and pressuring Chang’s second serve by charging the net.