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Delray Beach International Tennis Championships

Philippoussis makes Delray tournament finals

Mark Philippoussis rewards the net for a kind bounce during his match with Mikael Pernfors.

Mark Philippoussis rewards the net for a kind bounce during his match with Mikael Pernfors.

By David Sedore, Palm Beach Business.com

EDITOR'S NOTE: Click here to read coverage of Saturday's matches. Click here for more pictures from Sunday.

DELRAY BEACH — Mark Philippoussis took one berth in Tuesday’s finals of the ATP Champions Tour round robin in Delray Beach by easily defeating Mikael Pernfors 6-2, 6-2 Sunday afternoon.

John McEnroe stayed in contention for the other by beating Todd Martin in a rain-delayed match that took a tiebreaker to resolve. Aaron Krickstein of Boca Raton and Mats Wilander also remained alive by winning their matches.

Philippoussis, 34, thoroughly dominated the 47-year-old Pernfors throughout the match. Toward the end of the match, he took a point back believing that officials had missed a call. He immediately put the point back on the board when he overpowered Pernfors with a serve.

And when Philippousis wasn't good, he was lucky. One of his shots hit the top of the net and meekly bounded onto Pernfors's side of the court and died. Philippoussis walked up to the net and gently kissed it in appreciation of the favor.

"I'm sorry," Philippoussis told Pernfors.

"I'm sure you're not sorry at all," Pernfors replied.

"I'm a little sorry," Pilippoussis said.

Mikael Pernfors digs for this shot against Mark Philippoussis.

Mikael Pernfors digs for this shot against Mark Philippoussis.



In the late game, Martin took an early lead and seemed poise to knock off McEnroe, taking the first set 6-3. The three-time Wimbleton champion returned the favor in the second set to force a tiebreaker.

A light rain delayed the match; after crews dried the court and the two players began to warm up, the rains returned.

Both players complained about the officiating throughout the match.

At one point, Martin walked up the sidelines and tapped the court with his racket at the spot where he believed a shot had landed out of bounds.

McEnroe later in the match took issue with the umpire.

“Just say you didn’t see it,” McEnroe said. “Don’t bullshit me.”

After the rain delay, McEnroe became unhappy again. “I waited here for two hours for a call like that? You see it?” he asked the umpire. “Anyone see that?”

Wilander beat Pat Cash, hobbled with a knee injury, 6-4, 6-2.

Monday’s schedule:

Mats Wilander vs Mikael Pernfors, 12:30 p.m.
Sam Querrey (3) vs Dustin Brown, 2:30 p.m.
James Blake vs Benjamin Becker (7), 5:30 p.m.
John McEnroe vs Aaron Krickstein, 7:15 p.m.
John Isner (4) vs Teymuraz Gabashvili, to follow.

Click to view more pictures from Sunday's play.

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