Tennis Roundup : Lendl, Wilander, Becker and Connors Gain Semifinals

Top-ranked Ivan Lendl of Czechoslovakia led a group of favorites into the semifinals of the $375,000 Seiko Super tennis tournament Friday at Tokyo.

The others keeping alive hopes for the $60,000 winner’s payoff were No. 2-seeded Mats Wilander of Sweden, No. 4 Boris Becker of West Germany and defending champion Jimmy Connors.

But each of them had a fight on his hands.

Lendl managed to overcome the serves of Tim Mayotte and won his match, 6-4, 7-5.

Wilander survived the serves and topspin shots of No. 6-seeded Andres Gomez of Ecuador, 6-4, 2-6, 7-6.

Becker was hard-pressed to beat No. 5-seeded Anders Jarryd of Sweden, 7-6, 6-4, but in serving 13 aces to Jarryd’s none showed the sharpness that made him, at 17, Wimbledon’s youngest men’s champion.

Finally, Connors, 33, down 4-5 in the first set, rallied to beat Vince Van Patten, 7-5, 6-2.

After the match, Connors noted a soreness in his back and, looking ahead to meeting Wilander in the semifinals, said: “I welcome the challenge, but it will take an awful lot to get eager to take that challenge.”

Becker will meet Lendl in the other semifinal.

At Brighton, England, Chris Evert Lloyd battled for 1 hour 43 minutes before subduing Sweden’s Caterina Lindqvist, 6-2, 2-6, 7-6, to reach the semifinals of the $175,000 Pretty Polly women’s indoor tournament.

Lloyd, who will regain the world’s No. 1 ranking from Martina Navratilova if she wins this Virginia Slims event, needed all her experience in the tiebreaker to stave off an upset.

“I hit my ground strokes hard, but her’s came back even harder,” Lloyd said.

Lindqvist broke service in the 10th and 12th games of the third set to keep the match alive. She then saved two match points in the tiebreaker before losing.

Lloyd’s semifinal opponent today will be Annabel Croft of Britain, who along with Jo Durie gave the long-suffering local fans something to cheer.

Croft defeated Terry Phelps, 6-1, 6-3, while Durie beat Christiane Jolissaint of Switzerland, 6-2, 6-3.

Durie will play fourth-seeded Manuela Maleeva of Bulgaria, who ousted fifth-seeded Barbara Potter, 6-2, 6-3.

Three Americans, Paul Annacone, Marty Davis and Ben Testerman, made it to the semifinals of the Black and Decker indoor championships with victories over Australians at Melbourne.

Annacone outlasted Wally Masur, 3-6, 6-4, 7-6; Davis stopped Brod Dyke, 7-6, 6-4, and Testerman eliminated Peter McNamara, 7-6, 4-6, 7-5.

At Cologne, West Germany, India’s Ramesh Krishnan eliminated John Lloyd of Britain, 3-6, 6-3, 7-5, in the quarterfinals of a $119,200 tournament.