Tennis Roundup : Curren Serves Himself to WCT Win in Atlanta

Fourth-seeded Kevin Curren used a powerful serve Sunday to overcome Tim Wilkison, 7-6, 7-6, and win a $279,000 World Championship Tennis tournament at Atlanta.

Curren, 28, a former South African who lives in Dallas, took the $44,000 first prize. He served 11 aces in the 1-hour, 53-minute match to Wilkison’s one.

Curren erased two set points in the 12th game of the first set with service winners before holding serve on the third deuce to force a tiebreaker.

“At least I did get my racket on them,” Wilkison said of the service winners. “But they didn’t even make it to the net.

“His serve was too much. He was hitting it to the outside and to the inside, and I couldn’t guess. I was holding my serve very easy, but it was because of my volley. I wasn’t even getting his serve back.”

Curren went ahead, 6-5, in the first tiebreaker on an ace, and then Wilkison hit long to give the Texan the set.

In the second tiebreaker, Curren was in front, 4-2, and finished out the match by winning three straight points on Wilkison errors.

Wilkison, a 26-year-old left-hander from Asheville, N.C., who upset second-seed Boris Becker on Wednesday in his march to the final, earned $22,000 for his second-place finish.

The victory gave Curren, who is ranked 12th in the world, a 3-0 career record against Wilkison, who is ranked 46th.

Curren won for the fourth time in 11 Grand Prix finals. He did not lose a set in his five matches in the tournament. Curren beat Ramesh Krishnan of India, John Sadri, Eliot Teltscher and Brian Teacher to reach the final.

Wilkison has a 6-6 record in Grand Prix finals.

It was Curren’s first tournament victory since defeating Anders Jarryd in Toronto in February of 1985. He was runner-up to Becker at Wimbledon last summer.

“He’s really a gutsy player,” Curren said. “He makes you work hard to win. It’s been a long dry spell and it’s great to win.”

Chris Evert Lloyd said she lost her concentration briefly during the second set of the $150,000 Chrysler-Plymouth Tournament of Champions final at Marco Island, Fla., but got it back and beat Claudia Kohde-Kilsch of West Germany, 6-2, 6-4.

The top-seeded Lloyd allowed the second-seeded Kohde-Kilsch to break serve for a 4-2 lead.

“I think what happened in the second set was that I was a little impatient and went for too many good shots,” Lloyd said. “Maybe I got a little overconfident and let her back in the second set. I concentrated and cut down on my errors from that point.”

“I wanted to try a few new shots. I was going for more shots than usual. I was very comfortable with my lead. I let her back in the match, but maybe she didn’t believe she could win that set.”

Lloyd quickly ended her experimenting, winning the last four games and beating Kohde-Kilsch for the 11th time without a defeat.

The victory was worth $45,000 for Lloyd. Kohde-Kilsch earned $22,000.

“It isn’t so bad to lose to the second top player in the world, but I would like it better if I could win,” Kohde-Kilsch said. “I tried everything. Maybe next time. At 31 years old, she just gets better.

“She just keeps you running out there. She hits the best shots and she makes you hit great shots to win a point against her.”

Later, Martina Navratilova and Andrea Temesvari of Hungary each walked away $68,750 and a new convertible for defeating Elise Burgin and Kathy Jordan, 7-5, 6-2, in the $250,000 Women’s Team Championship final.

Fifth-seeded Jimmy Arias upset top-seeded Mats Wilander of Sweden, 6-2, 2-6, 6-1, to take the $40,000 first prize in the 52nd annual River Oaks tournament at Houston.

It was Arias’ first tournament victory since the Palermo Open in Italy in 1983.

“I am definitely playing top ten tennis, at least this week,” Arias said, who added that Wilander “gave me quite a few free points, which he usually never does.”

Wilander made 39 unforced errors to 32 for Arias, who hit 32 winners to 15 for the Swede.

“I played very bad on the most important points and his forehand was so good he controlled most of the game,” said Wilander, who took home $25,000.

Jonas B. Svensson struggled from behind to defeat Stefan Eriksson, 6-7, 6-2, 6-2, in an all-Swedish final of the $142,000 Goldstar tournament at Cologne, West Germany.

Svensson is the third straight Swede to win the tournament, following Joakim Nystrom in 1984 and Peter Lundgren in 1985.