Tennis Roundup : Injury Takes Becker Out of Match

Third-seeded Boris Becker of West Germany retired because of a thigh injury while trailing Slobodan Zivojinovic in the final set Friday, allowing the Yugoslav to advance to the semifinals of the $375,000 Seiko Super tennis tournament at Tokyo.

Top-seeded Ivan Lendl easily beat West German Eric Jelen, 6-3, 6-0, in a 56-minute match and will meet sixth-seeded Mikael Pernfors, who defeated Australian qualifier John Fitzgerald, 6-2, 6-1. Second-seeded Stefan Edberg of Sweden came from behind to eliminate seventh-seeded Paul Annacone, 3-6, 6-1, 6-2, and will play Zivojinovic.

Becker, 19, trailed fifth-seeded Zivojinovic, 3-0, in the final set. Becker lost the opening set, 6-3, but rallied to take the second, 6-1.

Becker had a point deducted for a delay in the second set when he had his injured left thigh bandaged.

“It hurts me when I serve,” Becker said. “I’ve never injured my thigh before.

“He (Zivojinovic) played very well. I have to be in the best condition to beat him.”

Said Zivojinovic: “I could play the best tennis today. I think I played better than him (Becker), and I was faster than him.”

Edberg, 21, the world’s second-ranked player, broke Annacone in the third, fifth and seventh games to take the second set. After see-saw play in the first four games of the final set, Edberg broke the American in the sixth and eighth games to win the match.

Top-seeded Pam Shriver and second-seeded Gabriela Sabatini of Argentina advanced to the semifinals of the $200,000 Volvo women’s tournament at Brighton, England.

Shriver needed just 58 minutes to beat sixth-seeded Katerina Maleeva of Bulgaria, 6-2, 6-1. Sabatini was on court for only 18 minutes when her West German opponent, Bettina Bunge, retired with an injury to her right thigh while Sabatini was leading, 5-0, in the first set.

Bunge was hurt during a practice session Thursday night and began the match with her thigh heavily bandaged.

Shriver’s precision serve-and-volley game and greater all-around court awareness left Maleeva with little chance. From 2-2 in the first set, Shriver won 10 of the next 11 games to earn a semifinal meeting with unseeded Kathy Jordan.

Jordan reached her first semifinal in 16 months when she upset eighth-seeded Sandra Cecchini of Italy, 6-1, 6-3.

In another quarterfinal, third-seeded Helena Sukova of Czechoslovakia struggled to beat No. 7-seeded Sylvia Hanika of West Germany, 6-3, 5-7, 6-1.

Israel’s Amos Mansdorf rallied to upset Sweden’s Anders Jarryd, 4-6, 7-5, 6-2, in a quarterfinal match of a $155,000 Grand Prix tournament at Vienna. Mansdorf, seeded sixth, needed 2 1/2 hours to oust the third-seeded Jarryd.

In other matches, Jonas B. Svensson, a 21-year-old Swede seeded fifth, defeated Milan Srejber of Czechoslovakia, 6-1, 5-7, 6-2, and Austrian Thomas Muster beat Emilio Sanchez of Spain, 6-4, 6-4.