EDBERG ENDS MCENROE'S BID
SWEDE WINS CLOSE ONE - 7-5, 7-6, 7-6

John McEnroe's amazing Wimbledon odyssey was ended Friday by defending champion Stefan Edberg, who overcame a rain delay and swept into the final with a sizzling serve-and-volley game.

Edberg's 7-5, 7-6, 7-6 victory stopped the 30-year-old American from continuing a remarkable comeback and reaching his first Grand Slam final in four years."I'm disappointed," said McEnroe, who showed no signs of a shoulder injury that forced him to withdraw from doubles a day earlier. "I felt like I could have won this tournament. Things just didn't work out."

Strangely, McEnroe lost despite playing what was probably his best match of the tournament. Each set was decided by a few crucial points, and Edberg won more of them than McEnroe.

"It was the small things that made me win," the 23-year-old Swede said. "I hit some good shots when I really needed to. There wasn't a lot of difference between the two of us."

The match was interrupted for 3 1/2 hours by rain early in the third set, and that delay forced officials to postpone the second semifinal between Ivan Lendl and Boris Becker until today.

The Lendl-Becker match will be played immediately before the women's final between Steffi Graf and Martina Navratilova. The last time a semifinal was staged the same day as a final was 1985, when Anders Jarryd and Becker finished a rain-interrupted match before the women's championship.

Edberg needed two days to beat Becker in last year's rain-plagued final. It took him far less time to beat McEnroe, but it wasn't easy.

The court was slippery, there were distractions from helicopters and birds, and McEnroe wasn't giving him many chances to break serve.

But Edberg won the first set with a break in the final game and then won two tense tiebreakers with his spinning serve and lightning reflexes at the net.

"He volleyed fabulously," McEnroe said. "I thought I'd be able to crack a few winners, but he was just too solid."

McEnroe, who was seeking his fourth Wimbledon title and first since 1984, kept his volatile temper in check despite continuing frustration over his faulty first serve. He got only 48 percent of his first serves in, and had nine double-faults along with eight aces.

The last time McEnroe reached the final of a Grand Slam was at the U.S. Open in 1985. Since then, he has married, had two children with wife Tatum O'Neal, taken two sabbaticals from tennis and tried to regain the form that carried him to seven Grand Slam titles.