French Open Tennis : Lendl Gets Past Nystrom; Graf, Sabatini Advance to Semifinals

On Sunday, Ivan Lendl left Roland Garros Stadium in a black mood. He had played until dark and Joakim Nystrom was still clinging to him like a tenacious little dog that won’t let go of your pants leg. He lost one set after holding 11 set points.

“Don’t ask me what I was thinking because you can’t print it anyway,” Lendl said Monday. “I was very frustrated and very disappointed.”

He slept well, though. “Very heavily,” he said. “But I kept dreaming about the match. I woke up and I thought, ‘That was a hell of a nightmare, losing all those set points.’ Then I realized it wasn’t a nightmare, it was real.”

Monday, though, the sun came out and Lendl put the nightmare behind him. What he could not finish in 3 hours 17 minutes Sunday, he finished in 48 minutes Monday, beating Nystrom, 1-6, 6-2, 5-7, 6-0, 6-2. The match had been suspended by darkness with Lendl leading, 4-0, in the fourth set.

“I think Ivan played a lot better Monday than last night,” said Nystrom, who broke service in the first game of the fifth set before collapsing. “Last night, he missed a lot of forehands. Today, he was hitting winners off it. That was the difference.”

Lendl’s escape puts him in the quarterfinals against Andres Gomez. The other match in the top half of the draw is between two more Czechs, Miloslav Mecir and Karel Novacek.

Monday, the bottom half was filled with Boris Becker beating Jimmy Arias, 5-7, 6-3, 6-2, 6-0; Jimmy Connors coming back to beat Becker’s West German countryman Ricki Osterthun, 4-6, 7-5, 6-0, 6-3; Mats Wilander taking out Frenchman Tarik Benhabiles, 5-7, 6-1, 6-3, 6-3, and Yannick Noah working long into the evening to get past Kent Carlsson, 7-6, 6-3, 6-7, 7-5. Those matchups will be Noah-Wilander and Becker-Connors.

The women began their quarterfinals Monday and the winners were the two teen-aged wonders, Steffi Graf and Gabriela Sabatini. Graf, two weeks shy of 18, made short work of Manuela Maleeva, 6-4, 6-1, for her 37th straight victory. Sabatini, two weeks past 17, raced past 15-year-old Arantxa Sanchez of Spain, 6-4, 6-0.

Graf next plays Sabatini. The old ladies, Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert, play their quarterfinals today.

Age was served Monday by Connors and, to a lesser extent, Noah. Youth, as always, was represented by Becker, who may have played the best clay court match of his life in beating Arias.

“Last year I came to this tournament and I just wanted to win matches, get through as many rounds as I could,” Becker said. “But this year I came here thinking I can win the tournament and I still feel that way. I am not satisfied to be in the quarters. I want to play three more matches.”

Becker next gets Connors, the last of the Americans. Monday, Connors needed all his guile and the old blood and guts to overcome a lanky West German who just kept the ball in play for two sets and waited for Connors to miss.

And, much to his disgust, Connors did miss. But, just when it seemed Connors might exit in ignominy, he put together one of his streaks, ripping off 10 straight games after twice being a point away from going two sets down.

“Actually, I think I wore him down some,” said Connors, knowing irony even as it came from his own mouth. “In the beginning, he was moving well, getting to everything. At the end, it wasn’t the same.”

Osterthun admitted he felt tired toward the end in the midday heat but credited Connors with turning the match around. “If I had won the second set it might have been different,” he said. “But after that set, he just didn’t miss. In the locker room, players told me if I played well I would have a very good chance to beat him. Well, I played well and he beat me. He’s still a very good player.”

Better, at least, than any other American in this tournament. While Connors is the last American, Noah is the last of the French after a giddy first week in which they pulled major upsets all over the grounds. Monday, Benhabiles made a run at Wilander, but wilted under a barrage of passing shots.

Noah gained a measure of revenge for France when he outlasted Carlsson in 3 hours 34 minutes. Wilander plays conservative tennis. Nystrom plays very conservative tennis. What Carlsson plays defies description. Nystrom is a net-charging madman compared to Carlsson. At least, when the match is over, he knows where the net is.

Carlsson’s goal in every match seems to be to hit a million topspin groundstrokes. He usually comes close. “You have to go out there,” Noah said, “thinking it will take forever.”

It almost did, Noah beating darkness by saving two set points at 4-5 in the fourth set and finally getting to net for the break he needed to close the match a few minutes later. There was no joy on his face, only relief that the deed was finally done.

The same could be said for Lendl.