McEnroe Comes Out on Top With a Win Over Lendl

In the wave of “Borismania,” it may have been forgotten that John McEnroe and Ivan Lendl are still the top two tennis players in the world.

The two met Sunday in the final of the $315,000 Volvo International tournament at Stratton Mountain, Vt., with the top-seeded McEnroe defeating No. 2 Lendl in straight sets, 7-6 (7-4), 6-2.

McEnroe broke Lendl’s service in the second game of the first set. But Lendl broke back in the seventh game to force the first-set tiebreaker.

The two had played for just 15 minutes with McEnroe leading 3-1 at 40-love in the fifth game when a light rain hit the area. The match was delayed for 1 hour, 25 minutes.

In the second set, which lasted just 32 minutes, McEnroe threatened to turn it into a rout by breaking Lendl’s first three service games to make it 5-0 before Lendl rallied briefly at the end to break McEnroe once.

McEnroe said he thought the key to the match was not allowing Lendl to play his baseline game.

“When you see him start to serve and volley, it’s time for the kill,” McEnroe said. “I’m not going to stand back there and let him get into a groove.”

McEnroe, who had lost twice in a row on clay to Lendl, now holds a 13-11 edge in their matches that began in 1980. He said that he preferred not to go into the U.S. Open at Flushing Meadow, N.Y, with a losing streak against Lendl, although the two could meet again next week in Montreal at the Canadian Open.

Wimbledon had co-No. 1-seeded players this year as both Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert Lloyd were given the top spot. But Lloyd made sure that she would be the top-seeded player at the U.S. Open with a 6-2, 6-4 win over Claudia Kohde-Kilsch of West Germany in the $280,000 women’s Canadian Open at Toronto.

It was Lloyd’s second consecutive Canadian Open championship.

Lloyd, seeded No. 1, earned $40,000, while No. 5-seeded Kohde-Kilsch received $20,000 as runner-up. Lloyd’s victory boosted her 1985 earnings to $692,569--a personal best surpassing her previous record of $689,458 set in 1982. Lloyd has now won 139 career titles.

Kohde-Kilsch, a 6-foot serve-and-volley player, had staged the upset of the tournament when she defeated Navratilova in the quarterfinals.

Lloyd said Kohde-Kilsch was noticeably tired after Saturday’s tough two-set semifinal victory over fourth-seeded Helena Sukova of Czechoslovakia.

“I think I got Claudia on a day when she was affected by those tough matches,” Lloyd said. “Mentally, I’ve had an easier time this week. I really didn’t expect her to come out 100%.”

Kohde-Kilsch, who won the Virginia Slims tournament in Los Angeles last week, said the past two weeks have been the greatest of her career.

In the doubles final, Navratilova and fellow American Gigi Fernandez defeated Pascale Paradis of France and Marcella Mesker of the Netherlands, 6-3, 6-0.