Tennis Roundup : Sabatini Stops Sanchez to Reach Tournament Final

Top-seeded Gabriela Sabatini of Argentina held off fourth-seeded Arantxa Sanchez of Spain, 6-4, 6-4, Saturday in the semifinals of the $200,000 Eckerd Tennis Open at Largo, Fla.

Sabatini will face No. 8 Conchita Martinez of Spain in today’s championship match. Martinez needed just 59 minutes to defeat No. 6 Sandra Cecchini of Italy, 6-0, 6-0, Saturday night.

Sanchez, trailing in the second set, 5-2, won the next two games, fighting off two match points on Sabatini’s serve in the ninth game, to close within 5-4. But Sabatini then broke Sanchez’s serve at love to clinch the match.

Top-seeded Ivan Lendl and No. 2-seeded Stefan Edberg of Sweden overcame strong wind conditions to reach the final of the $752,500 Japan Open in Tokyo.

Lendl, the world’s top-ranked player, easily ousted Richard Matuszewski, 6-2, 6-2, and Edberg defeated third-seeded John McEnroe, 6-4, 6-3.

In the women’s final, Kumiko Okamoto of Japan beat Elizabeth Smylie of Australia, 6-4, 6-2, to become the first Japanese women’s champion since Etsuko Inoue in 1983.

Sixth-seeded Andrei Chesnokov of the Soviet Union and Jerome Potier of France, last year’s surprise finalist, gained the final of the $200,000 Swatch Open tournament at Nice, France.

Chesnokov ousted Goran Ivanisevic of Yugoslavia, 6-4, 6-7 (6-8), 7-6 (7-4), and Potier, an unseeded wild-card entry, beat Italian Francesco Cancellotti, 7-5, 6-4, in the semifinals.

Sixth-ranked Stanford upset top-ranked UCLA, 5-2, at Stanford. The Cardinal is 15-4 overall, 7-2 in the Pacific 10 Conference. The Bruins are 24-2 and 9-1.