Tennis Roundup : Lendl, Connors Advance Amid Wind and Chill

Top-seeded Ivan Lendl of Czechoslovakia and second-seeded Jimmy Connors beat their quarterfinal opponents and the elements Friday in the $315,000 Paine Webber tournament at Fort Myers, Fla.

With temperatures dropping into the 50s and winds whipping to 25 m.p.h, Lendl routed eighth-seeded David Pate, 6-4, 6-2, and Connors defeated qualifier Todd Witsken, 6-3, 6-0.

In other quarterfinals, sixth-seeded Tim Mayotte won the final-set tiebreaker, 7-3, to beat Greg Holmes, 3-6, 6-3, 7-6, and fifth-seeded Andres Gomez of Ecuador scored a mild 6-3, 6-3 upset of fourth-seeded Johan Kriek.

Overpowered in the opening set, second-seeded Chris Evert Lloyd roared back to defeat Czechoslovakia’s Helena Sukova, 1-6, 6-1, 6-1, and move into the semifinals of the $500,000 Virginia Slims Championships at New York.

Lloyd, who has not won a season-ending tournament since 1978, will meet reigning U.S. Open champion Hana Mandlikova of Czechoslovakia in today’s second semifinal match. Mandlikova advanced with a 4-6, 6-3, 7-5 win over West Germahy’s Claudia Kohde-Kilsch.

The first semifinal will send top-seeded Martina Navratilova against 16-year-old Steffi Graf of West Germany.

Mandlikova, seeded fifth, recently returned to competition after sitting out six weeks with tendinitis of the right shoulder and arm, and has not yet returned to her best form.

She became increasingly irritated at adverse calls in her match with Kohde-Kilsch, and in the fourth game of the second set she whipped the ball hard into the seats, drawing a code of conduct violation.

Top-seeded Mats Wilander of Sweden reached the semifinals of the $315,000 Belgian Indoor championship at Brussels by beating Jonathan Canter, 4-6, 6-3, 6-2.

In earlier quarterfinal action, Miloslav Mecir of Czechoslovakia swept past defending champion Anders Jarryd of Sweden, 6-4, 6-3, and underdog Broderick Dyke of Australia continued a surprisingly strong showing by defeating France’s Guy Forget, 6-1, 2-6, 7-6.