Tennis at Manhattan Beach : Martina Back in Top Form, 6-3, 6-2

What is the tennis version of Showtime?

Why, it’s the Martina Navratilova Show, featuring serves speedier than a Laker fast break, lobs taller than Magic Johnson on tiptoes and volleys deeper than Pat Riley’s inner thoughts.

There’s no place like Los Angeles to put on a show, playing tennis all the while, says Navratilova, who ought to know because she has been coming here and knocking balls around since 1974.

Wednesday night, Isabelle Demongeot got in the way of Navratilova’s performance, but not for long.

Under the lights, Navratilova scored a 6-3, 6-2 second-round victory in the Virginia Slims of Los Angeles and the winner thought it was a pretty good show. But it always has to be, she said.

“This is L.A.,” Navratilova said. “You people are really critical here. You’re used to the very best in entertainment.

“So I’m aware of a need to perform well. If you’re playing in a city where you don’t get much stuff, smaller places people are thrilled to see you, period. You can just about miss every shot and they’re still clapping.

“Here, it’s different.”

At 33, it’s the same old Navratilova. Well, almost. She feels like she’s in pretty good shape after training in Aspen, Colo., by riding her bicycle up hills and lifting weights.

But she was playing her first match since losing to Steffi Graf in the Wimbledon final and her first on a hardcourt since the Australian Open in January.

The result? Except for one game in which she double-faulted three times, Navratilova showed a formidable serve, a whole bunch of well-timed returns and enough sharp volleys to keep Demongeot, 23, in perpetual trouble.

Demongeot, of France, went for big first serves, but did not get a high percentage of them in, so Navratilova wound up with what she called a “comfortable” victory.

In fact, Navratilova had to weather only one rough spot, that one when she was broken in the first game of the second set after three double faults three times.

She blamed her five-week layoff for that game, which she traced to rustiness.

Demongeot was suitably impressed.

“I think she’s still good,” Demongeot said.

Distracting, too, she said. Navratilova played to the audience at Manhattan Country Club a couple of times--spanking herself with her racket after missing a drop shot and deliberately hitting a ball to a man in the stands after he had dropped a ball hit to him just before.

“It’s difficult,” Demongeot said. “She’s talking to the public and everything and it’s a show.”

No kidding, Navratilova said.

“If she’s aware of it, she shouldn’t be,” Navratilova said.

After all, the show must go on.

How long, Hana?

Two years ago, she was a member of that exclusive club, the top 10, checking in at No. 5. Now, Hana Mandlikova thinks she is going to be there again.

She just isn’t sure when.

“It took (John) McEnroe two years,” said the 18th-ranked Mandlikova. “It might take me a year, two years. It might take me six months.”

Funny, that’s how long her second set seemed Tuesday in an up, down and up again, 6-1, 0-6, 6-2, third-round victory over Amy Frazier, 17, of Rochester Hills, Mich.

No matter how it looked--double fault at 0-5 and overhead into the net on set point--Mandlikova said it wasn’t a matter of her taking a nose-dive in the second set as much as it was Frazier firing winners past her.

“She kept hitting bullets at me,” Mandlikova said.

There is one bullet heading in Mandlikova’s direction that she might not be able to dodge: Martina Navratilova, who must first defeat Terry Phelps today.

Mandlikova is 0-4 against Navratilova this year and has not won a set.

Pam Shriver lost her serve once and it cost her the first set, then took out her aggression on Claudia Porwick of West Germany.

Shriver advanced to the quarterfinals with a 4-6, 6-3, 6-0, victory, allowing Porwick only 11 points in the third set.

Tennis Notes

Martina Navratilova said she hasn’t necessarily closed the door forever on Pam Shriver as a doubles partner. “This is not a permanent situation,” Navratilova said. “It’s way up in the air.” . . . Meanwhile, Shriver has discovered that if she has extra time on her hands from not playing doubles, then fishing is a lot of fun. Shriver recently taken up angling. “I think it’s a great hobby except when you have to take the hook out of the fish’s mouth.” Shriver is working with a new coach, Jason Goodall, 22, who was once the No. 2-ranked player in England. . . . Women’s tennis historian Ted Tinling received the Billie Jean King Award for service to women’s tennis.