Lendl Finally Gets a Run for His Money : Gomez Gives Top-Ranked Player a Scare Before Losing, 6-4, 7-5

Hooray for the underdogs, long may they be underestimated. Without them, everyone would be cheering at the same time.

And now, a cheer for Andres Gomez, who very nearly crashed a party in which he wasn’t even invited. Gomez, the pride of Ecuador and the No. 15 tennis player in the world, came closer Saturday than any player thus far in the Nabisco Masters tennis tournament to putting the fear of failure into top-seeded Ivan Lendl of Czechoslovakia.

Lendl won at Madison Square Garden, 6-4, 7-5. But the 15,007 fans watching must have felt more the winners, for, even at New York prices, they got their money’s worth.

The crowd was clearly hoping the little-noticed Gomez would somehow pull it out. It was not an unreasonable expectation. Gomez had been upsetting opponents all week in a tournament he never expected to be in. He was not among the 16 players originally selected to compete in this $500,000 event. His invitation wasn’t lost in the mail; it was sent to Jimmy Connors.

When Connors had to withdraw from the tournament because of the flu, the organizers offered the spot to and were turned down by three other players before contacting Gomez.

That was last Tuesday. Gomez took a shuttle from Washington, where he was the guest of the president of Ecuador, and arrived in New York at 7:30 the night of the match. He got to the Garden less than a half-hour before he was to play.

He made it through the week with only one shirt and borrowed rackets. And he sent opponents Henri Leconte and Johan Kriek home early.

Gomez, who is said to be one of the most popular players on the tour, was quite relaxed about playing Lendl, his sometime doubles partner. He was happy enough just to be here.

“I have to be pleased with the way I played today,” Gomez said. “I won two matches that no one expected me to play in. I got to the semifinal against the best player in the world, and I played him a good match. I made some money.”

Gomez’s happy-go-lucky attitude may be left over from his former life style--professional surfer. Gomez was at one time the No. 4 surfer in Ecuador and just another unranked tennis player.

Gomez laughs that his tennis game improved once he stopped “spending 12 hours a day at the beach.” Since he quit the pro beach circuit and concentrated on tennis, Gomez has done well.

Proof was offered Saturday. Gomez was the first player here to press Lendl into any long rallies. He was also the only player in this tournament to break Lendl’s powerful serve--he did that once.

Lendl was ahead, 5-1, in the first set but dropped 11 straight points before winning at 6-4.

After that, Gomez began to chip away at Lendl with a slashing topspin forehand.

There were no breaks in the second set until Lendl broke at 5-all, thanks, in part, to an untimely double fault by Gomez. Even the wild cheering by Ecuadoreans waving their country’s flag and clanging cow bells could not distract Lendl.

The final game lasted several minutes as Gomez was clinging to stay in the match. The game had 14 points and Gomez had two break points.

“I just wanted to hold--I didn’t want to get into the tiebreaker,” Lendl said of the final game. “On the second match point, I could have put the approach shot away, but I didn’t get enough pace on it and he hit a lob. I felt I should have won it before it started getting long.”

Lendl’s win sets up a showdown with sixth-seeded Boris Becker today. Becker advanced to the final by beating Anders Jarryd, 6-3, 6-4.

A week ago, the 18-year-old Becker said one of the reasons he likes New York so much is that he is free to walk the streets without having his clothes torn from him by his West German fans. “Here, I can go to the cinema, I can walk about and there is no trouble,” Becker said. “In Germany people want to touch me all the time. Here, they just say, ‘Way to go, Boris.’ ”

Becker has had little of the peace he sought. Several West German television crews are here, not to cover the tournament but expressly to follow Becker around. Becker has grown accustomed to the unwanted entourage.

“I read in the newspaper before I came here, ‘Travel with Boris Becker to New York and see the Masters.’ So I wasn’t really surprised,” he said.

West Germans here, press included, are having difficulty containing their pride for their superstar. “Bravo, Boris” is the customary greeting from the West German press when Becker enters the interview room.

Not a few West Germans are staking out the hotel where Becker is staying, and he has even run across a few countrymen on the streets.

“I saw two (West Germans) last evening, but they both were drunk,” he said.

Tennis Notes

One of the biggest upsets of the tournament occurred Saturday when the team of Joakim Nystrom and Mats Wilander defeated Ken Flach and Robert Seguso, 6-2, 6-1, in the doubles semifinal. Flach and Seguso are the 1985 U.S. Open champions and the world’s top-ranked doubles team. The match lasted only 49 minutes.