Navratilova, Lloyd to Play for Title in Dallas Today

Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert Lloyd will meet for the 64th time today after sweeping through the semifinals of a $150,000 women’s tennis tournament at Dallas Saturday night.

The longtime rivals have split their first two matches of 1985. Lloyd won in Key Biscayne, Fla., 6-2, 7-5. Navratilova won three weeks later in Delray Beach, Fla., by the same score. Navratilova has 32 victories in the series to Lloyd’s 31.

Saturday, the second-seeded Lloyd defeated unseeded Catarina Lindqvist of Sweden, 6-1, 6-3, and the top-seeded Navratilova beat third-seeded Helena Sukova of Czechoslovakia, 6-2, 7-5. It was Sukova who had beaten Navratilova in last year’s Australian Open.

In her first meeting with Lindqvist, Lloyd said her opponent “hits the hardest ground strokes of anyone I’ve played. I got into a slugging match against her, which was a good warmup to get my ground strokes grooved.”

Lindqvist broke Lloyd’s serve once, in the second set, cutting her deficit to 3-4, but did not win another point after her forehand failed her completely.

“I concentrated really well,” Lloyd said. “Give me some credit--I played a real good match. I served very well.”

Navratilova, who lost only five points on her serve in the first set, had her serve broken twice in the second set. In the fifth game, Sukova was within a point of taking a 4-1 lead and then hit a lob from point-blank range into the net.

Moments later, Sukova missed another lob to allow the world’s No. 1 player to break serve and get back into the set.

Navratilova needed two more service breaks to win the match, but she said Sukova’s overhead failures were the key to her victory.

“I don’t lob much off the forehand side. But she likes to get close to the net because she is so tall,” Navratilova said. “I picked the right spots to do that tonight, and that was a big game. From there, I felt my fate was in my hands.”

Said Sukova: “I had two smashes which I should have finished the game with. Somehow, I missed them. I don’t know how.”

Mats Wilander and Anders Jarryd justified the seedings in the $267,000 Belgian Indoor championships by advancing to an all-Swedish final at Brussels.

No. 1 Wilander defeated No. 4 Pat Cash of Australia, 6-3, 7-6, while No. 2 Jarryd edged countryman Stefan Edberg, 7-6, 3-6, 6-3.

Cash, trying to control the match from the net, pushed the 21-year-old Swede to a tiebreaker in the second set, but Wilander won it, 8-6.

Edberg came back after trailing 0-3 in the first set against Jarryd but flopped in the tiebreaker, losing 7-2.

Jarryd failed to maintain the momentum, however, and lost the second set before getting back into his rhythm.