French Open : Lendl and Graf Still Appear to Be a Cut Above

On the clay courts of Roland Garros Stadium, a tennis complex named for a World War I French fighter pilot, Ivan Lendl is on a mission.

The $4.5-million French Open, the year’s second Grand Slam event, begins today on the red caked clay that gets on your socks, over your shoes and sometimes in your heart.

There may be no greater lover of Grand Slam tournaments than Lendl, who has won seven of them, including three at Roland Garros. Lendl already has the Australian Open title to his credit, which means he could be on his way to becoming this year’s Mats Wilander with a victory here.

Wilander won it last year, of course, and also the Australian and U.S. Opens, but has since fallen upon difficult times. His match-play record this year is only 8-8.

At Roland Garros, groundskeepers drag the courts between matches, as a grounds crew would drag the infield at a baseball game. If Wilander’s plight gets any worse, they may have to drag the Seine.

Lendl, on the other hand, is at the top of his game. In seven tournaments this year, he has reached the final six times and won five, losing only to Stefan Edberg at the Japan Open. In the only tournament in which Lendl did not make the final, he lost to John McEnroe in the semifinals of the WCT Finals in Dallas.

However, McEnroe is not playing here because of a bad back. Instead, McEnroe is taking this week off, then playing a grass-court event in Beckenham, England, to prepare for Wimbledon.

Top-seeded for the fourth consecutive year, Lendl’s 33-2 record this year is the best by any man in the tournament.

Fifteen of the top 20 players in the world are entered and the winner will earn $291,752.

The women’s singles does not seem quite as competitive as the men after the withdrawal of Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert. Back-to-back champion Steffi Graf becomes an even greater favorite to win her third consecutive event with the absence of two of her principal nemeses.

Graf’s stiffest challenge for the $257,379 championship money may come from second-seeded Gabriela Sabatini, third-seeeded Natalia Zvereva or possibly a pair of 17-year-old Spaniards--Arantxa Sanchez and Conchita Martinez.

Sabatini, 19, is the only player to have beaten Graf this year. Graf’s 39-1 record would be perfect except for a 3-6, 6-3, 7-5 loss to Sabatini in April at a tournament in Amelia Island, Fla., which was also played on clay.

Graf, who will be 20 four days after the end of the tournament, got a rematch with Sabatini last week in Berlin and won, 6-3, 6-1.

If Graf celebrates her birthday with a victory here, she would become only the first woman to win three consecutive French Open titles since Hilde Sperling of Germany (1935-37).

Tennis notes

Steffi Graf, top-seeded and No. 1 in the world, plays the first match on center court today against Camille Benjamin, who lives in Bakersfield. Benjamin is ranked No. 88. . . . Ninth-seeded Jimmy Connors follows Graf onto center court for his first-round match against Martin Strelba of Czechoslovakia. . . . Gabriela Sabatini debuts on center court after Connors, against Akemi Nishiya of Japan. . . . Jim Pugh of Palos Verdes drew second-seeded Boris Becker for a first-round match, which will probably be scheduled for Tuesday. . . . Graf is dating 24-year-old fellow West German player, Alexander Mronz. German reporters already are having a field day with the news, referring to Mronz as “Mr. Graf.”