McEnroe Faces Connors in Montreal Semifinal

John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors easily defeated quarterfinal opponents Friday to set up a semifinal meeting today in the $375,000 Players International tournament at Montreal.

The top-seeded McEnroe beat No. 16 Ramesh Krishnan, 6-3, 6-2, and No. 3 Connors defeated No. 6 Stefan Edberg of Sweden, 6-4, 6-1.

In the other quarterfinals, No. 2 Ivan Lendl of Czechoslovakia overpowered No. 5 Anders Jarryd of Sweden, 6-1, 6-0, and No. 15 Jimmy Arias defeated No. 7 Eliot Teltscher, 6-1, 7-6.

McEnroe, who has won 17 of 29 matches against Connors dating back to 1977, said he has to get “pumped up” for his semifinal match.

“Connors returns better than just about anybody,” McEnroe said. “I don’t really have as much to gain as I did a few years back in playing him, but I have to get ready mentally, or he’ll take advantage.”

Connors, who will be 33 next month, made precision passing shots to defeat his 19-year old Swedish opponent.

After a tight first set, Connors broke Edberg twice in the second set, including the third game when Edberg had two straight double faults.

“I tried to come to the net, but he passed me all the time,” Edberg said.

McEnroe and Krishnan exchanged service breaks in the first set before McEnroe broke his opponent in the eighth game. McEnroe broke Krishnan twice in the second set.

At Mahwah, N. J., Gabriela Sabatini, the teen-age sensation from Argentina, scored a stunning straight-set upset over top-seeded Pam Shriver to advance to the semifinals of a $150,000 women’s tournament.

Sabatini, 15, rallied in both sets for a 7-5, 6-4 win.

“That’s my best victory ever,” Sabatini said. “It was important that I stayed calm even when I was behind.”

Sabatini will play 16-year-old Steffi Graf of West Germany, who beat No. 9 Kathy Jordan, 6-4, 6-4.

In other quarterfinals, eighth-seeded Catarina Lindqvist of Sweden needed just 40 minutes to beat No. 4 Helena Sukova of Czechoslovakia, 6-1, 6-2, and No. 6 Kathy Rinaldi defeated unseeded Iva Budarova of Czechoslovakia, 6-2, 6-4.

At St. Louis, Chris Evert Lloyd defeated 13-year-old Mary Jo Fernandez, 6-3, 6-4, in a semifinal match of a $126,000 women’s tournament.

Lloyd will meet Hana Mandlikova of Czechoslovakia tonight in the final. Mandlikova defeated Andrea Temesvari of Hungary, 6-2, 6-2.

At New York, Andrea Jaeger, Rosemary Casals and 13 other players were chosen as wild-card entries for the U.S. Open championships starting Aug. 26.

The selections were made by the United States Tennis Assn.

Also named to the women’s draw were NCAA champion Linda Gates, Anna Ivan, Beverly Bowes, Leslie Allen and Sandy Collins.

Among those named to the men’s draw were Peter McNamara of Australia, Steve Denton, Tim Gullikson, Robert Seguso and NCAA singles champion Mikael Pernfors of Sweden.