French Open : Leconte and Noah Advance

Two Frenchmen, Henri Leconte and Yannick Noah, provided the upset and the drama Friday to set up a fourth-round showdown at the French Open tennis championships.

“We’ve played three times and he’s won all three,” the unseeded Leconte said of Noah. “But I’ve been playing with more and more confidence here.”

Leconte upset No. 5-seeded Andres Gomez of Ecuador, 6-3, 6-4, 6-4, while No. 9-seeded Noah survived a controversial battle with Jose-Luis Clerc of Argentina, 6-1, 6-7, 6-4, 4-6, 8-6.

Joining the crowd favorites in the fourth round of the men’s singles were No. 1-seeded John McEnroe, No. 13 Tomas Smid of Czechoslovakia and three Swedes--No. 4 Mats Wilander, No. 7 Joakim Nystrom and No. 12 Henrik Sundstrom.

McEnroe defeated Marcos Hocevar of Brazil, 6-2, 6-1, 6-2; Smid ousted Darren Cahill of Australia, 6-2, 6-1, 6-1, and Wilander stopped Emilio Sanchez of Spain, 3-6, 6-4, 6-3, 6-3.

Also, Nystrom routed Simon Youl of Australia, 6-2, 6-0, 6-2, and Sundstrom beat Balazs Taroczy of Hungary, 6-3, 6-4, 6-7, 6-5.

Besides Noah vs. Leconte, other battles for quarterfinal berths will pit McEnroe against Sundstrom, Nystrom against Hans Gildemeister of Chile and Wilander against Smid.

In the women’s singles, No. 2-seeded Chris Evert Lloyd, No. 4 Manuela Maleeva of Bulgaria, No. 8 Carling Bassett of Canada, No. 10 Bonnie Gadusek, No. 11 Steffi Graf of West Germany and No. 14 Gabriela Sabatini of Argentina all posted victories.

Lloyd stopped Angeliki Kannellopoulou of Greece, 6-3, 7-5; Maleeva beat Marie-Christine Calleja of France, 6-0, 6-1, and Bassett edged Gabriela Dinu of West Germany, 7-5, 6-4.

Gadusek routed Catherine Calmett of France, 6-2, 6-0; Graf defeated Bettina Bunge, 6-1, 7-6, and Sabatini beat Anne White, 6-1, 7-6.

In the next round, Lloyd will play Graf, Bassett will meet Terry Phelps, Maleeva will face Gadusek and Sabatini will take on Rosalyn Fairbank of South Africa.

The Noah-Clerc match was marred by a disputed call late in the final set.

Noah was down, 5-6, but had just taken the advantage on his serve. After a quick exchange, Clerc dribbled a weak shot that just cleared the net and Noah slapped a quick smash toward the sideline.

The ball was called in. Clerc protested vehemently. The referee stood by the line judge, but Noah eventually agreed to have the point replayed.

The Frenchman won the game on the next point with a volley off the service return.

Clerc appeared shaken after the controversy and didn’t win another point in the match, which lasted 4 hours 23 minutes.