Navratilova Wins Once Again, but It Isn’t Easy : Lloyd, Unable to Overcome Eight Double Faults, Is Handed a 7-6, 6-3 Defeat

They are friends who met at the office and formed a bond that goes beyond their work. When the work is done, these friends talk and talk.

Some days the work is harder than others. Some days, when they have to work against each other, it becomes more than difficult. It becomes distasteful.

Sunday, in the final of the $250,000 Virginia Slims of Los Angeles tennis tournament at the Manhattan Country Club, Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert Lloyd went to work against each other for the 70th time in their careers. Navratilova won, 7-6, 6-3, giving her a 37-33 advantage in the rivalry.

Navratilova played a superb serve-and-volley match. Lloyd, with her backhand passing shots, was at the top of her game--except for her serve. Lloyd’s eight double faults, two in the tiebreaker, cost her the first set, at the very least.

“Except for my serve, everything was working very well,” Lloyd said. “I was breaking her and passing well. I just double faulted twice in the tiebreaker. I don’t want to say that was the difference. But if I could have won the first set, it would have been a different story.”

The story, as it played out on a hot afternoon before a capacity center court crowd of 5,700, was the expected struggle between Navratilova’s serve and Lloyd’s ability to pass her at the net.

Each performed her task well. After holding in the first two games of the first set, Lloyd double faulted at 30-love to let Navratilova into the game. Navratilova eventually went on to break Lloyd and take a 2-1 lead.

The double faults aside, Lloyd’s serve is more of a weapon than it has ever been.

“She is serving better, but she’s making those double faults,” Navratilova said after picking up $45,000 for the victory. “She’s putting more pace on the ball. Her first-serve percentage was very high. I can’t really come in on the second serve.”

Lloyd has spent this year tinkering with her serve and has yet to find a groove with it.

“At the French (Open) it was good,” Lloyd said. “As with everything you try to change, especially at this late stage in my career, it’s not going to be there every night. I have to keep at it and accept the fact that there are going to be days and nights it’s not going to be there.”

Lloyd’s serve left her when she needed it most. After breaking Navratilova in the sixth game, Lloyd double faulted and lost serve in the 11th. Then she broke Navratilova in the next game to send the set into a tiebreaker, which Navratilova eventually won, 7-5.

Lloyd went up, 3-1, with a break, then lost that advantage when she double faulted on the fifth point. Another double fault at 4-4 meant that all Navratilova had to do was hold serve to win the set.

She did. On set point, Lloyd’s backhand smacked into the tape, and Navratilova jumped for joy and pumped her arms.

She knew she had escaped a close set. But she also knew that Lloyd, ever a relentless opponent, would not give up. Navratilova had succeeded in putting on the pressure, but she had to keep pressing. Lloyd had given no indication that she was ready to quit.

“I was glad I won the first set,” Navratilova said. “I felt I should have won it. I deserved to win it. I felt that if I didn’t win the first set, we were going to be out there a long time.”

Lloyd, not surprisingly, thought she should have won the first set.

“I felt pretty annoyed, very annoyed,” she said. “It is very rare that I have a set like that against her. Usually, I’ll play my game and she’ll overpower me. I felt I lost the first set. I felt I definitely sort of let it slip.”

Navratilova served two aces in the first game of the second set, reminding Lloyd, lest she forget, that her serve is still her most powerful weapon.

The only effective counterattack is a passing shot. And since Navratilova almost always follows her serves to the net, a winning passing shot against her is a precise and delicate shot. Lloyd is foremost among the women in the game at just such surgical placements.

Her backhand passing shot was almost always good for a winner Sunday, offering a ray of hope in the pall of her serving troubles.

But it was not enough. Navratilova’s serve was overpowering in the second set. So much so that Lloyd won only seven points in Navratilova’s service games.

When it was over, and Lloyd approached the net to shake the winner’s hand, Navratilova would not have the net between them. She skirted the net, and the two friends walked off with their arms around each other’s shoulders.

Afterward, Navratilova reflected on the series between the two players and thought this match might be placed in the upper strata.

“As for the overall level, it was pretty high,” Navratilova said. “The pace on the ball and the grind of us moving around the court is much higher (now) than it ever was. If it is not in the top 10% it’s only because it’s not a Grand Slam event.”

Navratilova also spoke of her friendship with Lloyd, a relationship that has somehow weathered what is one of the most competitive battles in all of sport.

“If I have to lose, I’d rather it be to her because she’s a great player and a great person,” Navratilova said. “We’ve both spurred one another on, and I think it’s great. It says a lot about ourselves. It says a lot about Chris, coming back and making herself a better player.

“I want her to be the best player she can be. I want to beat her at her best. She’s a much better player and a much better athlete than she was two or three years ago.”

Of course, this final could well repeat itself at the U.S. Open at the end of this month. Since the semifinals of the 1981 Open, every time Navratilova and Lloyd have played each other, it has been in the final of a tournament.

It’s nice work, if you can stand it. From the looks of this rivalry, these days at the office for Navratilova and Lloyd are getting harder and harder. Harder to play, and harder to talk about as friends later.