Tennis Roundup : Leconte and Hlasek Advance in Belgian Indoor Tournament

Top-seeded Henri Leconte of France defeated Australian Wally Masur, 6-4, 1-6, 6-3, Friday to advance to the semifinals of the $490,000 Belgian Indoor Championship at Brussels.

Jakob Hlasek of Switzerland, seeded second, advanced with a 7-5, 6-4 victory over Tom Nijssen of the Netherlands.

In other quarterfinal matches, Australian John Fitzgerald beat West German Eric Jelen, 6-1, 3-6, 6-0, and another West German, Patrick Kuhnen, beat France’s Eric Winogradsky, 6-4, 6-2.

Leconte meets Fitzgerald, seeded fourth, in one of today’s semifinals, and Hlasek plays unseeded Kuhnen in the other.

Peru’s Jaime Yzaga and Argentina’s Javier Frana won semifinal matches in Brazil’s $305,000 Citibank Open at Rio de Janeiro.

Yzaga upset Argentina’s Martin Jaite, 6-3, 6-4, in 90 minutes and Frana ousted Spain’s Javier Sanchez, 7-6, 7-5.

Yzaga, ranked 101st in the world by the Assn. of Tennis Professionals, wasn’t bothered by 102-degree heat, charging the net at every opportunity and smashing crisp passing shots for winners.

Jaite, ranked 49th, hung tough for most of the match with a powerful serve. But with the score tied, 1-1, in the second set, Yzaga stung Jaite with two sizzling baseline shots to break service.

“That was the key to the match,” said the Peruvian after the victory. “I knew I was in control after I broke him.”

In the other semifinal, Frana, ranked 132nd, came back from a 5-2 deficit in the tiebreaker of the opening set with four straight points to win it 8-6.

Sanchez, shaken by the tiebreaker, dropped two break points and the first game of the second set. But he broke Frana’s service in the third game for a 2-1 lead and settled down to grab a 5-3 advantage in games.

Then Frana stormed back. Mixing drop volleys with strong passing shots, he broke 2 services and ran off 4 straight games.

The top-seeded team of Robin White of the United States and Gigi Fernandez of Puerto Rico beat Anne Smith and Australian Janine Thompson, 7-6, 6-4, in the first round of the Virginia Slims World Doubles Championship at Tokyo.

The Smith-Thompson pair broke serve in the fifth game, and the White-Fernandez duo broke in the eighth game before going into a tiebreaker and winning it, 7-2, with 7 straight points.

In an all-American first-round match, Katrina Adams and Zina Garrison defeated second-seeded Lori McNeil and Betsy Nagelsen, 5-7, 6-2, 7-5.