Tennis Roundup : Lendl, Becker Easily Advance; Connors Loses to Steeb

Ivan Lendl and Boris Becker, the top two seeded players, easily reached the semifinals of the $692,500 German Open tennis tournament Friday at Hamburg, West Germany.

Lendl defeated Jonas Svensson of Sweden, 6-2, 6-2, while Becker advanced when his quarterfinal opponent, Paolo Cane of Italy, defaulted because of a strained hamstring.

Lendl, seeded No. 1 in the clay court tournanent, has not lost a set in three matches.

Today, Becker will play Austria’s Horst Skoff, who beat West Germany’s Michael Westphal, 6-1, 6-3. Lendl will meet West Germany’s Carl-Uwe Steeb, who downed Jimmy Connors, 6-4, 6-1.

Top-seeded Gabriela Sabatini survived a first-set scare to overcome sixth-seeded Sandra Cecchini of Italy, 7-5, 6-1, and advance to the semifinals of the $300,000 Italian Open at Rome.

Fourth-seeded Arantxa Sanchez of Spain and No. 14 Nathalie Tauziat of France also won quarterfinal matches. Sanchez routed unseeded Yugoslavian Sabrina Goles, 6-0, 6-3, while Tauziat rallied from one set down to upset No. 7 Judith Wiesner of Austria, 1-6, 6-2, 6-2.

Nicole Arendt and Siobhan Nicholson rallied to beat Janna Kovacevich and Anna Brunstrom, 3-6, 6-4, 6-2, to lift second-seeded Florida past No. 11 Pepperdine, 5-4, in the NCAA Women’s Championships at Gainesville, Fla.

In today’s semifinals, Florida will face No. 3 UCLA, which beat No. 6 USC, 5-4.

No. 4-seeded Georgia swept the three doubles matches and rallied for a 5-4 victory over No. 5 California. The Bulldogs will meet No. 1 Stanford, which defeated Oklahoma State, 5-1.

Sixth-seeded Jay Berger and unseeded Lawson Duncan advanced to today’s semifinals of the U.S. Clay Court Championships at the Isle of Palms, S.C., after second-seeded Michael Chang withdrew because of a stomach virus.

Chang, 17, had a 103-degree fever, his coach, John Austin, said. It was the first time that Chang has dropped out of a tournament since he turned pro in February 1988.

He was scheduled to play Javier Frana of Argentina in the day’s final quarterfinal match. Frana advanced to the semifinals against Berger, the only seeded player left in the tournament, who defeated third-seeded Luiz Mattar of Brazil, 6-2, 6-2.

Duncan beat Cassio Motta of Brazil, 6-2, 6-0, and will face Tim Wilkison in the semifinals.