Tennis Roundup : Lendl Moves Past Leconte Into Final Against Jarryd

Top-seeded Ivan Lendl, yielding just three points on his serve in the opening set, downed Henri Leconte of France, 6-4, 7-6, Saturday to reach the final of the $465,000 Benson and Hedges tennis tournament at Wembley, England.

Lendl, who won this event in 1984 and ‘85, took 95 minutes to down Leconte and earn a spot in today’s match against Anders Jarryd of Sweden.

Jarryd, seeded fifth, beat No. 7 Jakob Hlasek of Switzerland, 7-6, 6-1.

First place in the tournament is worth $75,000.

“I played better than I thought I would,” said Lendl, 8-5 in his career against Leconte. “I was mixing up my serves early on, but did not have the courage to do so later in the match until the tiebreaker. Then I just forced myself.

“I’m not surprised to be in the final. That should be par for me, although I did think I might lose on this surface. It’s very fast.”

Leconte fought off four match points in the tie-breaking before going down to defeat.

Top-seeded Martina Navratilova defeated Helena Sukova, 7-5, 7-5, and advanced to today’s final of the $150,000 Virginia Slims of Chicago.

Navratilova will play Natalia Zvereva of the Soviet Union, who downed Barbara Potter, 6-4, 2-6, 6-4, in the other semifinal.

Navratilova has won the tournament seven times.

Tim Mayotte defeated Derrick Rostagno, 6-4, 6-1, in the semifinals of the $174,000 Frankfurt Cup at Frankfurt, West Germany.

In today’s final, Mayotte will play second-seeded Andres Gomez of Ecuador, who beat Jim Pugh, 6-3, 6-3, in the other semifinal.