Hana the Czech Is Now Certified : Mandlikova Ousts Lloyd, Gains Final With Navratilova

Hana and her tennis sisters, Chris and Martina, have become three. Not two. Not 2 1/2. Three.

Not a pair of queens. Three of a kind.

A matched set, match after match, set after set.

When she won the U.S. Open last summer, Hana Mandlikova beat both of them, Chris Evert Lloyd and Martina Navratilova. Nobody had done that in the same tournament since Tracy Austin did it in New Jersey’s Meadowlands in 1981. Nobody has done it since.

Now, Mandlikova has a chance to do it again. But even if she doesn’t, she already has shown, by virtue of Thursday’s 7-6, 7-5 victory over Lloyd, which placed her against Navratilova in Saturday’s final, that she belongs in their company. She is one of them.

Lloyd is not regressing; Mandlikova is progressing. “She’s a very close No. 3, and she’s moving up,” Lloyd said after their match.

Five times in the last eight Wimbledons, the finalists had been the golden girls, Martina and Chris. They were Ali and Frazier. Affirmed and Alydar. Alexis and Krystle. No matter that Lloyd had lost 7 of her 10 title matches here; she was hardly the Minnesota Vikings of tennis. She was a champion.

But Wimbledon’s last American-born contender of 1986 found out the hard way that the Mandlikova she saw at the last U.S. Open was no mirage. That was on Har-Tru; this was on grass. Mandlikova had never taken so much as a set from Lloyd on grass before Thursday.

However, this is no longer the trembling 19-year-old girl from Prague who lost the 1981 Wimbledon final to Lloyd in an hour flat. This is an experienced player of 24 who, when crunch time comes, attacks rather than retreats. And who wins gracefully, without mugging, without gloating.

“She’s a lot nicer, more relaxed,” Lloyd noticed. “She won a big match and didn’t jump the gun and get too excited. She didn’t rub it in.”

“I’ve grown up,” Hana said.

Down in Thursday’s second set, 5-2, Mandlikova reeled off 14 straight points, 16 of the next 18, and 23 of the last 28. Lloyd hardly knew what hit her. The match was over just like that.

The Czech overpowered her during that stretch, much the way the ex-Czech, Navratilova, cut through 16-year-old Gabriela Sabatini of Argentina, 6-2, 6-2, earlier in the day. That one took 54 minutes. Never mind Sabatini’s looks. It wasn’t pretty.

Navratilova might well win her seventh Wimbledon, and fifth in a row. She has never been beaten in a final here. She is hotter than Fort Worth chili.

“Hana’s capable of beating Martina on grass, but I still would have to put my money on Martina,” Lloyd said.

Nevertheless, Mandlikova has lost only one set in this Wimbledon--to Lori McNeil, 7-6. Her serve has rarely been better. Against Lloyd, in the second set, 21 of her first 24 serves were good. In the final game, when Lloyd had break point, Mandlikova put so much topspin on her second serve that it hopped shoulder-high, handcuffing Lloyd.

Back to deuce. Mandlikova served-and-volleyed, as usual, and Lloyd lobbed, a bit too long. Match point, Mandlikova. A big serve, a weak return, and Hana, hovering at the net, hammered home the winner.

Later on, neither woman claimed to have been conscious of the 14-point run that rallied Mandlikova from her 5-2 disadvantage. Sometimes, players who can recall with precise detail the third game of the third set of the Lynda Carter Maybelline Classic cannot recall something that transpired 20 minutes before. Even memory banks demand penalties for early withdrawal.

Mandlikova remembers her 1981 final with Lloyd, though. “I remember that I couldn’t sleep the night before--that I was so excited that I asked my parents to come over from Prague,” she said. “It was my first very big final, and I was very young and very nervous. I wasn’t there, at all.

“I’ve grown up since then. I can handle things differently. I wouldn’t ask my parents to come now. I know they are always with me (in spirit).”

In Czechoslovakia, Mandlikova has almost everybody behind her. Navratilova might as well have been born in Texas, where she now lives. As Mandlikova once mentioned of her former countrywoman, “They do not even print her ray-sults there.”

An invitation to the Federation Cup in Prague later this month does not necessarily mean that Navratilova’s defection has been forgiven.

But she has dominated women’s tennis this entire decade, she and Lloyd. From the French Open of 1981 to the U.S. Open of ‘85, Mandlikova failed to win another Grand Slam event. Since last year’s triumph, she has lost to Navratilova four times.

They are not good friends. Nor are they enemies. They are rivals. Chris and Martina are closer pals than are Hana and Martina. Yet, in long-ago Prague, Hana was a ball girl for Martina. At Wimbledon Thursday, they had a pleasant conversation before their matches. Should Lloyd step down soon, the Czech native daughters would be the stars of the show.

Lloyd addressed such questions. “I don’t think this match would have anything to do with retiring,” she said. “It’s still the middle of the year, and I always finish out the year. I still have one Grand Slam title (the French) under my belt, and now I’m looking forward to going home to Florida and regrouping, and playing in the U.S. Open.”

Of the elimination of U.S. players here, Lloyd said: “I don’t think it has anything to do with Americans going down the drain. Other countries are coming up with great players. Smaller countries now have better facilities, better coaching. We’ve seen the emergence of the Eastern European countries. But we have good American players coming up, the Stephanie Rehes and Mary Joe Fernandezes. We have a lot of good teeny-boppers coming up.”

And of Mandlikova, she said: “In a sense, she’s probably playing the best of all the girls, besides Martina, on grass. She should play Martina here, not me.”

To the club, she was being welcomed.

Notes The men’s doubles final will pit Mats Wilander and Joakim Nystrom of Sweden against Peter Fleming of Glen Cove, N.Y., and Gary Donnelly of Scottsdale, Ariz. . . . Martina Navratilova and Gabriela Sabatini had never played each other before Thursday. Sabatini aced her four times in her first three services but had little else going for her. “She is improving fast. I would be surprised if she never wins this title,” Navratilova said. . . . Sabatini, who does some modeling, was asked if she considered herself as pretty as people have been saying. She laughed. “I think, yeah,” she said.