Tennis Roundup : McEnroe Beats Lendl; Gomez Ousts Connors

John McEnroe defeated Ivan Lendl, 7-6, 7-6, Friday in a $350,000 tennis tournament at Stuttgart, West Germany, and will face Andres Gomez of Ecuador in the semifinals.

Gomez beat Jimmy Connors, 6-3, 7-6.

Miloslav Mecir of Czechoslovakia defeated West German Eric Jelen, 6-4, 7-6, and will meet West Germany’s Carl-Uwe Steeb, who upset Lendl Thursday.

Lendl, the former top-ranked player in the world, is making a comeback after a shoulder operation in September and is not yet back in form.

McEnroe and Lendl held service to 6-6 in the first set, and McEnroe won the tiebreaker, 7-5. The set took 59 minutes.

The second set was much the same, but McEnroe capitalized on a double-fault by Lendl to win the tiebreaker, 7-4.

The winner of the tournament, which ends Sunday, receives $45,000.

Top-seeded Henri Leconte of France and fifth-seeded Jonas Svensson of Sweden defeated unseeded opponents to advance to the semifinals of a $450,000 tournament at Wembley, England.

Leconte beat Milan Srejber of Czechoslovakia, 6-4, 6-7, 6-2, while Svensson breezed past 18-year-old Jim Courier, 6-3, 6-0.

Courier has risen from 360th to 59th in the world this year and was bidding to reach his second successive tournament semifinal.

But Svensson, a finalist in 1986, had too much experience and too much weight of shot for the American, wrapping up the match in 63 minutes.

In the final set, Courier won only 8 points.

Leconte needed 1 hour 53 minutes to subdue the hard-serving Srejber in their quarterfinal.

“I was happy because I was returning so well. He has such a big serve and you never know what is going to happen,” Leconte said.

Earlier, fourth-seeded Jakob Hlasek of Switzerland and No. 8 John Fitzgerald of Australia each needed 3 sets to advance to the semifinals.

Hlasek rallied to beat sixth-seeded Amos Mansdorf of Israel, 4-6, 6-3, 6-2, and Fitzgerald defeated unseeded Robert Seguso, 6-3, 3-6, 6-0.

Top-seeded Martina Navratilova got even for a loss in the U.S. Open by overpowering seventh-seeded Zina Garrison, 6-3, 6-3, to advance to the semifinals of the $250,000 Virginia Slims of Chicago.

Navratilova, the defending champion, will meet fifth-seeded Helena Sukova today.

“I’ll never forget that loss to Zina in the Open. After all, that’s one of the biggest tournaments in the world, and even though I came back in the last two sets, I played on guts and still almost won,” Navratilova said.

“But, a loss like that is something you never forget and I was pumped up this time,” she said.

It was Garrison’s 22nd loss to Navratilova in 23 meetings.

Earlier, fourth-seeded Manuela Maleeva of Bulgaria defeated Ann Grossman, 6-2, 6-1, and will face Chris Evert in the other semifinal.