Connors Bids Early Adieu to French Open : Marathon Match Against Jay Berger Ends in Defeat, 4-6, 6-3, 7-5, 7-5

With a wave of his hand, Jimmy Connors walked off Stadium Court to a round of cheers late Wednesday afternoon, after 4 hours 26 minutes of tennis had left him defeated but also strangely exhilarated.

Disappointed, too? Well, sort of.

“I was trying to reach the five-hour mark,” Connors said. “I wanted to see if I would still be standing.”

Connors, 36, was a second-round casualty at the French Open, where he lost to Jay Berger, 14 years his junior, who now adds his name to the growing list of younger players who have defeated Connors in the early rounds of recent tournaments.

At Monte Carlo, it was Paolo Cane, 24. At Munich, it was Martin Jaite, 24. At Rome, it was Sergi Bruguera, 18. This time, it was Berger, a 22-year-old Floridian who won a 4-6, 6-3, 7-5, 7-5 endurance test against one of the sports’s most enduring figures.

So when the legions of French fans sided with Connors during the match and then gave him a standing ovation as he left the court, Berger understood.

“Hey, if I was in the stands, I would have cheered Jimmy Connors, too,” he said.

On a clay court the color of smoked salmon, Connors’ quest to win the only Grand Slam tournament he has missed in his storied career ended when he sent a forehand approach shot wide and long on match point.

But Connors was not devastated, only defeated.

“For me to go out and grind out a match like that, it’s fun,” he said. “To play a kid like that, 14 years younger . . . I could have played a fifth set. My mouthpiece wasn’t knocked out.”

Each match is a fight for Connors, a duel with rackets, his style and approach belying an age that is ancient, by tennis standards. His match against Berger was longer than any final in French Open history, but this was the second round, not the final, although Connors played as though it was.

“That’s what I do,” he said.

Although the ninth-seeded Connors fell out, the other top-seeded players stayed in with impressive victories.

Boris Becker, seeded second, defeated Eric Winogradsky of France, 7-6 (7-4), 7-5, 6-3, and third-seeded Stefan Edberg stayed on track for a possible quarterfinal match against Jakob Hlasek or Alberto Mancini by defeating Nicholas Pereira of Venezuela, 6-4, 6-4, 6-2.

Hlasek, sixth seeded, defeated Andres Gomez of Ecuador, 6-4, 6-2, 6-2. Mancini eliminated his Argentine countryman, Jaite, 7-6 (7-1), 6-4, 6-3. Hlasek and Mancini, 11th seeded, will meet in the round of 16 if each wins his next match.

In the women’s singles, it was business as usual for Steffi Graf of West Germany and Gabriela Sabatini of Argentina, who scored impressive victories and moved easily into the third round.

Graf overpowered Bettina Fulco of Argentina, 6-0, 6-1, and Sabatini followed suit with a routine 6-3, 6-1 victory over Alexia Dechaume of France.

Helena Sukova of Czechoslovakia was not as fortunate. Sukova, fifth-seeded here and a finalist in the Australian Open, was upset in the second round by Akiko Kijimuta of Japan, 6-1, 7-5.

Graf’s victory was particularly devastating. The world’s No. 1 player needed only 47 minutes to eliminate Fulco, ranked 27th. Graf, who said she sometimes apologizes to her opponents after thrashing them, found no need to tell Fulco she was sorry.

“I was playing so well, there was nothing I can do,” Graf said.

How well was she playing?

“Very, very well,” Graf said. “I had such a good feeling.”

In defeat, Connors felt pretty good himself.

Connors, who has eight Grand Slam titles among his 107 tournament victories, said he played the clay-court season in Europe to get in shape and have fun. He said he had accomplished both.

“I had a ball,” Connors said.

Even as the early-round defeats stack up, Connors said he has no apologies--”So what?”--and he wouldn’t be worried if his clay-court experience does not pay dividends in the hard-court season.

The match may have swung on a couple of poorly played games, Connors said. With Berger serving at 2-4 in the fourth set, Connors held two break points and didn’t capitalize. In the third set, Connors was serving at 6-5 and 40-15 and was broken.

Berger’s victory was not without his own moments of drama. He broke strings on his racket three times and still won points on two of those occasions.

He also won a point when his racket slipped out of his hands on a smash, but he hit the ball anyway and it bounced twice before the racket hit the ground.

“I really don’t know if I would have been able to play a fifth set,” he said. “If it had gone five, I think they would have had to carry us both off the court.”

Tennis Notes

Jimmy Arias reached the third round with a 7-6 (7-1), 7-5, 6-1 victory over Anders Jarryd of Sweden, but Aaron Krickstein of the U.S. held a two-set lead over Mark Woodforde of Australia, then lost. Woodforde came back to win, 1-6, 6-7 (7-5), 6-4, 6-4, 6-4. It was the first time in Krickstein’s career that he had held a two-set lead and lost. . . . Goran Ivanisevic of Yugoslavia is the youngest player remaining in the field at 17. He is a couple of months younger than Michael Chang of Placentia and Pete Sampras of Rancho Palos Verdes. Sampras and Chang will meet in a third-round match today.

Top-seeded Ivan Lendl plays Derrick Rostagno of Brentwood, Andre Agassi faces Paolo Cane of Italy and defending champion Mats Wilander meets Diego Perez of Uruguay in the second round today.