Pam Shriver Says She’s Ready to Challenge Lloyd This Week

Pam Shriver, the world’s third-ranked women’s tennis player, says she’ll challenge Chris Evert Lloyd in the Virginia Slims of New Orleans tournament this week.

Martina Navratilova, winner of the New Orleans tournament last year, is skipping the stop this year.

Lloyd is ranked No.1, ahead of Navratilova, in World Tennis Assn. standings going into the tournament here.

Shriver, 23, has been ranked among the top six women’s tennis players in the world since 1982.

Andrea Jaeger also announced that she will play the New Orleans stop. She has been ranked as high as second and is making a comeback after a rotator cuff injury forced her to take a lengthy layoff last year. She was fourth in 1981, third in 1982 and 1983, but fell to 42nd last year, winning $60,062 for the year.

Shriver has won three tournaments and $166,277 this year. Her victories were in the Australian Indoors, Mebourne and Birmingham tournaments.

Last Monday night, she scored a 6-0, 6-0 victory over Jenny Klitch in the opening round of the Virginia Slims $150,000 tournament at Chicago, taking just 37 minutes to do it.

Shriver was seeded second in last year’s inaugural tournament at New Orleans but got upset by Zina Garrison in the semifinals.

Barring withdrawals, the top seeds for the $150,000 tournament here would be Lloyd, Shriver, Garrison, Kathy Rinaldi, Wendy Turnbull, Carling Bassett, Barbara Potter and Bettina Bunge.