French Open Tennis Championships : Mandlikova Ends Graf’s Win Streak at 23

Like records, winning streaks are made to be broken.

Steffi Graf’s amazing string of victories ended abruptly at 23 Monday when Hana Mandlikova beat the 16-year-old West German, 2-6, 7-6, 6-1, in the quarterfinals of the French Open tennis championships.

Graf had a chance to make it 24 straight, however. She had match point, serving at 5-4, 40-30, in the second set. But, after returning Graf’s second serve, Mandlikova, the reigning U.S. Open champion, attacked the net.

At that point, Graf, trying for a winner, missed with the forehand that had rocketed her to the world’s No. 3 ranking, sending the shot long.

“After that she started playing well,” Graf said.

Mandlikova tied the set at 5-all and eventually forced a tiebreaker, which she won, 7-3. The fifth-seeded Czech then breezed in the third set.

Graf had won four tournaments in a row, including victories in the finals at Hilton Head Island, S.C., over Chris Evert Lloyd and over Martina Navratilova at West Berlin. Lloyd and Navratilova have 263 tournament victories and eight French Open titles between them.

Mandlikova will play Lloyd next in the semifinals.

Lloyd, seeking her second consecutive French Open title and a record seventh, also dropped the first set of her match before beating 18-year-old Carling Bassett of Canada, 5-7, 6-2, 6-1.

“I put everything into the first set and got so tired,” Bassett said. “My legs started cramping.”

Lloyd said she wasn’t into the match in the opening set.

“I was struggling. I was not concentrating very well,” she said. “When I won the first two games of the second set, I knew I would win.”

This marks the eighth year in a row, and 11th time overall, that Lloyd has advanced as far as the semifinals in Paris. She stretched her all-time mark of match victories at Roland Garros Stadium to 62 against 4 losses.

Although Lloyd is 18-5 in lifetime meetings, Mandlikova has won their last two meetings.

Wimbledon champion Boris Becker also survived a scare Monday. The third-seeded West German edged 14th-seeded Emilio Sanchez of Spain, 6-0, 4-6, 4-6, 6-4, 6-2, in a fourth-round match.

Sanchez had beaten Becker two weeks ago at Rome.

Joining Becker in the quarterfinals were No. 8 Henri Leconte of France, a 6-1, 6-2, 6-1 winner over Horacio de la Pena of Argentina; Mikael Pernfors of Sweden, who ousted No. 11 Martin Jaite of Argentina, 6-1, 3-6, 7-6, 7-6, and Andrei Chesnokov of the Soviet Union, who beat Francisco Maciel of Mexico, 6-4, 6-1, 4-6, 6-1.

Pernfors, the lone remaining Swede in singles, will meet Becker in the quarterfinals. Chesnokov’s next opponent will be Leconte, the only Frenchman left.

Chesnokov, who upset second-seeded Mats Wilander in the third round, had more trouble with Maciel than he did with the defending champion.

But chasing down everything Maciel hit across the net, the Soviet right-hander continued his run through the bottom half of the draw.

“I can play against anyone,” he said. “Leconte’s game doesn’t bother me. I shall prepare myself for the match and play my own game. I am not thinking about winning (the title) here. I am just thinking about playing my next match.”

The women’s quarterfinals will be completed today when No. 1-seeded Martina Navratilova takes on No. 7 Kathy Rinaldi, and No. 6 Helena Sukova faces the tournament’s biggest surprise, 14-year-old Mary Joe Fernandez.