McEnroe Takes Another Beating by Leconte at Seniors Liege

There are few players that can get under the skin of John McEnroe quite like Henri Leconte, and the Frenchman did it again at the BlackRock Tour of Champions event in Liege on Friday to move a step closer to the final.

Leconte won a topsy-turvy, bad-tempered match 6-4, 1-6, 10-5 (Champions' Tie-Break) in an hour and 15 minutes to leave McEnroe fuming.

A break of serve in the fifth game was enough to give Leconte the first set, but McEnroe stormed back in the second and seemed to have the momentum going into the Champions' Tie-break. But, Leconte wasn't done yet, and he produced a string of flamboyant winners to seal victory.

"I'm happy to have won and need one more win to be in the final," said Leconte. "It was great -- a good match with good points. It's always something special to play John. He is always complaining. This is John!"
 
The Frenchman now needs to beat Mansour Bahrami in his remaining round-robin match to guarantee a place in his second final of the year on Sunday.

Earlier, Bahrami went down 6-3, 6-4 to Bjorn Borg.

Elsewhere, Paul Haarhuis and Magnus Gustafsson maintained their 100% records in Group B by registering victories over Guy Forget and Anders Jarryd respectively. Haarhuis won 7-6(4), 6-4, while Gustafsson scraped home 6-7(1), 6-2, 10-6 (Champions' Tie-break).

The winner of the round-robin match between Haarhuis and Gustafsson on Saturday will almost certainly face Leconte in Sunday's final.

All players will play each other over the first three days, and the players finishing top of each group will meet each other in the final. Those finishing second in each group will contest the 3rd/4th place play-off.
-- Blackrock Tour of Champions