Wimbledon Roundup : Lendl Has Rough Time in Win Over Schapers

Ivan Lendl, whose favorite game on grass is golf, found himself in the rough at Wimbledon Friday. It wasn’t an unplayable lie, though.

Playing on a chewed-up court that his opponent likened to the rough on a golf course, the world’s No. 1 tennis player outlasted big-serving Michiel Schapers of the Netherlands to move into the fourth round of the Grand Slam tournament.

The top-seeded Lendl moaned over line calls and was distracted by noise from a nearby balcony, but he kept his concentration for the nearly four hours it took to win, 6-7, 7-6, 6-4, 6-7, 6-1.

“I usually have trouble in the rough,” Lendl said of the conditions on Court No. 2. “And the course I play at home (in Greenwich, Conn.) doesn’t look that bad.”

Court No. 2 is known as the “graveyard of champions” because stars such as John McEnroe, Jimmy Connors and Ilie Nastase lost there in past tournaments.

Lendl, who has never won a Wimbledon title and doesn’t like playing on grass, nearly added his name to the list of upset victims. But after his 6-foot 5-inch opponent boomed a service winner to win the fourth-set tiebreaker, Lendl broke Schapers twice in the final set before closing out the match with his own service winner.

“I felt in the fourth set he was getting tired and having more trouble with his serve,” said Lendl, who reached the fourth round here for the sixth straight time. “In the fifth set, it really showed.”

Schapers, the only player to win a set against eventual champion Pat Cash in last year’s tournament, had mixed feelings about his losing effort.

“I beat Boris Becker in five sets once (at the 1985 Australian Open) and I didn’t play half as well as I did today,” he said. “Against Becker, I was happy with the win but not with the way I played. Today, I was happy with my play but not with the loss.”

One day after McEnroe’s Wimbledon comeback was shattered by Wally Masur, two more seeded players were ousted.

Paul Annacone, who beat McEnroe in the first round of the 1986 U.S. Open, beat No. 12 Jonas Svensson, 6-4, 6-2, 3-6, 6-4, and No. 9 Hana Mandlikova was ousted by Anne Minter of Australia, 6-4, 6-3.

Mandlikova, who has won every Grand Slam event except Wimbledon, was sidelined for almost two months with a leg injury before the French Open, where she lost in the second round.

“I’m one of the most fragile bodies in the game,” she said. “If you look at my body, it’s not very strong or muscular. It’s catching up with me. I’m 26 years old and I’ve been on the circuit since I was 15. The body is just giving you warnings all the time . . . and that’s what happens when you’re 26.”

Top-seeded Steffi Graf continued her dominance with a 6-3, 6-1 victory over Terry Phelps. But Phelps managed to win twice as many games as did Graf’s first two opponents combined.

Sixth-seeded Helena Sukova, No. 12 Zina Garrison and No. 16 Mary Joe Fernandez also won their third-round matches.

Cash, coming off a tough five-set win over Javier Frana, breezed past fellow Australian John Fitzgerald, 6-1, 6-2, 6-4. Joining him in the fourth round were two-time champion Boris Becker, seventh-seeded Henri Leconte and No. 10 Tim Mayotte.

Becker survived a first-set tiebreaker to beat American Sammy Giammalva, 7-6, 6-4, 6-4. The 20-year-old West German rallied from 0-40 in the final game to wrap it up on a service winner.

“He never really had a chance to win,” said Becker, the only male player to reach the fourth round without dropping a set. “I had so many chances to break him, but I didn’t take advantage.”

Distracted by noise from a nearby balcony crowded with players, fans and a television crew, Lendl complained to umpire Gerry Armstrong and later turned toward the balcony and shouted “Shut up!”

“They just kept talking,” Lendl said. “Once the umpire asked them to stop, they did.”

Lendl wasn’t pleased with the officiating, either. In his previous match against Darren Cahill, Lendl was given a warning for verbal abuse for shouting at umpire Richard Ings. This time, Lendl kept shaking his head and grumbling over line calls that didn’t go his way.

In his postmatch interview, Lendl was asked why the smile he flashes with reporters is rarely seen on the court.

“Because things are a lot more important out there,” he quipped.

The match was dominated by the server, with no breaks in any of the tiebreaker sets. In fact, there were no breaks at all until the third game of the third set, which Lendl won with three straight groundstroke winners.

Schapers, a quarterfinalist at the Australian Open, broke back in the next game to even the set, 2-2. But Lendl broke again in the seventh game with a running forehand blast and served out the match.

“I’m very unhappy that I didn’t win in three straight sets,” Lendl said. “I was up 6-5 in the first-set tiebreaker and would have had an easy putaway to win the set, but I slipped and he won the point.”

Schapers thought it was a “very well-played match.”

“We didn’t miss very many easy balls,” he said. “I think my first unforced error on a volley happened in the third set.”