Tennis : Wilander, Graf Stagger Through Tiebreakers

Sweden’s Mats Wilander and West Germany’s Steffi Graf shook off slow starts Friday to advance to the fourth round of the $2.1-million Lipton International Players Championships.

Graf, top-seeded among the women, was taken to a tiebreaker before beating Rosalyn Fairbank of South Africa, 7-6, 6-0.

Wilander, the men’s top-seeded player, recovered after losing a second-set tiebreaker to beat Alexander Volkov of the Soviet Union, 6-3, 6-7, 6-4, 6-2.

“I came out really mentally prepared to play the match, but it seemed that he didn’t,” Wilander said. “It didn’t seem like he cared and that threw me off. I guess that is his style.”

Graf, trying to overcome the flu the past 10 days, went through the motions in the first set before the tiebreaker shook her.

“I started hitting the ball much harder in the tiebreaker (which she won 7-0) and in the second set,” Graf said. “Roz was playing pretty well and hitting things back in, and I was making a few errors. I decided to hit the ball harder and I started moving better, which made the big difference in the match.”

Gabriela Sabatini of Argentina, seeded third, defeated Lisa Bonder, 6-2, 6-0, but eighth-seeded Zina Garrison lost to Elna Reinach of South Africa, 1-6, 6-2, 6-0.

Tim Mayotte scored a 7-6, 6-3, 6-3 victory over Paul Annacone, and Yannick Noah of France was a 7-6, 6-2, 6-2 winner over Tomas Smid of Czechoslovakia.

However, eighth-seeded Martin Jaite of Argentina was upset by Ramesh Krishnan of India, 3-6, 6-3, 6-3, 6-3.