Tennis Roundup : Noah Faces Connors in Milan Final

Fifth-seeded Yannick Noah of France won a tiebreaker in the decisive third set Saturday to defeat top-seeded Boris Becker of West Germany, 6-4, 4-6, 7-6, in the $490,000 Italian Indoor championships at Milan.

In today’s final, Noah will meet second-seeded Jimmy Connors, who beat Milan Srejber of Czechoslovakia, 6-1, 3-6, 6-1.

Connors, 35, fought back from love-40 on his serve in the first game and won 16 of the next 18 points to run through the first set in 29 minutes.

He won the final set Saturday on his fourth match point after letting Srejber come back from an 0-40 deficit in the next-to-last game of the 1-hour 40-minute match.

The Noah-Becker match lasted 2 hours 41 minutes.

Noah, who beat Wimbledon champion Pat Cash of Australia in the quarterfinals, won on his second match point with an 8-6 victory in the tiebreaker.

Becker, who had won the past two Italian Indoor championships, was playing his first Grand Prix tournament since treating a knee problem with calf blood and honey injections two months ago.

Noah, beaten last week in the semifinals at Lyon, France, had low expectations for the tournament.

“I’ve been canceling airplane reservations every night since Wednesday,” he said. “That’s how much confidence I had here. I’ve been calling my friends every day telling them to expect me. Now I guess they’ll have to wait until Monday.”

At Oakland, unseeded Larisa Savchenko of the Soviet Union shocked second-seeded Gabriela Sabatini of Argentina, 7-5, 6-4, to reach the final of a $250,000 Virginia Slims tournament.

The upset, Savchenko’s third in the event, boosted her into today’s championship match against top-seeded Martina Navratilova, who earlier trounced fourth-seeded Zina Garrison, 6-2, 6-2.

Savchenko had earlier eliminated seventh-seeded Mary Joe Fernandez and third-seeded Hana Mandlikova.

Saturday, Sabatini was ahead, 5-0, in the first set before losing eight straight games. She then broke the serve of the 21-year-old Soviet to tie the second set at 1-1. Savchenko, however, broke right back with three straight winners to erase a 15-30 deficit and take a 2-1 lead. Each player held her serve the rest of the way.

Savchenko won the match when Sabatini hit a forehand lob over the baseline.

At Memphis, Tenn., sixth-seeded Andre Agassi advanced to the final of the $415,000 U.S. Indoor championship with a 6-1, 6-4 victory 10th-seeded Kevin Curren.

“The guy’s devastating. It’s not just the power he has, but speed as well. Off the ground, he’s tough,” Curren said.

“At one point, I was feeling pretty helpless. He was hitting the ball from side-to-side and everywhere else.”

The victory puts Agassi, 17, into today’s title match against ninth-seeded Mikael Pernfors of Sweden, who defeated Robert Seguso, 6-4, 6-4.