Tennis Roundup : Lendl Scores 6-4, 7-6 Semifinal Win Over Cash

Ivan Lendl defeated Wimbledon champion Pat Cash of Australia, 6-4, 7-6, Saturday to advance to the final of the $923,000 European Community Championships at Antwerp, Belgium.

Lendl will meet Miloslav Mecir of Czechoslovakia today for the $215,000 winner’s check. Mecir breezed past Sweden’s Mats Wilander, 6-1, 6-2.

Lendl has won three previous championships, beating John McEnroe (1982 and 1985) and Anders Jarryd (1984).

Cash frustrated Lendl early, causing the world’s No. 1 player to break his racquet by throwing it angrily to the floor.

Lendl, ranked No. 1 in the world, broke Cash in the ninth game to win the first set. They played evenly in the second set until the tiebreaker, but Lendl took command to win, 7-4.

Mecir called his victory “small revenge” for his loss to Wilander at the U.S. Open in September.

There was no way to stop the United States from winning its seventh straight Wightman Cup, but Britain did manage to get on the board.

Jo Durie snapped a 23-match Wightman Cup winning streak by the U.S. with a 7-6, 6-3 victory over Zina Garrison at Williamsburg, Va., to help the British avoid a third consecutive shutout in the annual seven-match challenge series.

After Durie’s singles win, she teamed with Anne Hobbs to down Garrison and Lori McNeil, 0-6, 6-4, 7-5, in the final match, giving the United States a 5-2 victory.

“It meant a lot for us to win,” Durie, the British captain, said. “Although we were eliminated, we wanted to win as many matches as possible today.”

U.S. team captain Pam Shriver began Saturday’s final round of play by beating Hobbs, 6-4, 6-3, giving the Americans a 5-0 lead.

Top-seeded Steffi Graf overcame a sluggish start to defeat third-seeded Manuela Maleeva of Bulgaria, 6-4, 6-7, 6-1, in the semifinals of the $150,000 European Indoor championships at Zurich, Switzerland.

Graf will meet second-seeded Hana Mandlikova of Czechoslovakia in the final today. Mandlikova also struggled before beating unseeded Nathalie Tauziat of France, 6-1, 3-6, 6-3.

Third-seeded Eliot Teltscher beat Australian Darren Cahill, 7-5, 6-0, to advance to the final of the $200,000 Seiko Super tournament at Hong Kong.

In today’s final, Teltscher, ranked 23rd in the world, will face Australian Davis Cup player John Fitzgerald, who beat Jeremy Bates of Britain, 6-3, 6-4, in the other semifinal match.