Tennis Roundup : Lendl Wins Seventh Grand Prix Title This Year

Top-seeded Ivan Lendl won his seventh Grand Prix title of the year, defeating Anders Jarryd of Sweden, 6-3, 6-2, 7-5, Sunday in the final of the $375,00 Benson and Hedges championship at Wembley, England.

The prize of $75,000 boosted Lendl’s earnings for 1987 to $993,656 as he built his match record since January to 69-7.

Lendl, the world’s top-ranked player, lost only 17 points on his service, 5 in the first set, 4 in the second and 8 in the third. Four of those points came on double faults.

The 27-year-old Czech completely outclassed the fifth-seeded Jarryd in 2 hours 21 minutes before a capacity crowd of 8,000. It was Lendl’s third title in four years at this tournament, where he is unbeaten on the Supreme court at the Wembley Arena.

“It’s hard to explain but I don’t really like this surface,” Lendl said. “It does not really suit my game.”

Like it or not, Lendl had no trouble in Sunday’s final, his last Grand Prix event before the season-ending Masters tournament in New York.

“He is by far the best player in the world. You just cannot compare him to the others,” Jarryd said. “To beat him, you have to come up with aces and big shots all the time, and that is just not possible.”

In 1988, Lendl says, he will be playing only 12 Grand Prix events, 6 less than this year.

“I have played more than I would have liked this year but there are still two tournaments I want to win very much, the Australian Open and Wimbledon,” Lendl said.

“I would like to start the year on a good note in Australia.”

Martina Navratilova took advantage of numerous errors to deflate the upset bid of unseeded 16-year-old Natalia Zvereva, 6-1, 6-2, in the final of a $150,000 Virginia Slims tournament at Chicago.

Zvereva was seeking to become the first Soviet to win on the Slims circuit since her coach, Olga Morozova, defeated Billie Jean King for the title at Philadelphia in March 1974.

Navratilova, a native of Czechoslovakia who became an American citizen in 1981 and now lives in Fort Worth, said she felt pressure as an American.

“I kept thinking about Lake Placid, when the Americans beat the Russians in hockey (in the 1980 Winter Olympics),” she said. “It’s silly, but I felt that, by God, if you lose this match it’s going to be a disaster.”

Tim Mayotte defeated Andres Gomez of Ecuador, 7-6, 6-4, to win a $174,000 tournament at Frankfurt, West Germany.

Mayotte, ranked No. 10 in the world, won in 2 hours for his fifth Grand Prix victory. He earned $30,000 to bring his career winnings to $1.01 million.

Gomez, ranked 13th in the world, received $15,000 as runner-up.