TENNIS ROUNDUP : Lendl Has a Nice, Easy Indoor Win Over Mayotte in Milan

Top-seeded Ivan Lendl overpowered Tim Mayotte in straight sets in Sunday’s final of an indoor tournament at Milan, Italy, and added $78,000 to his all-time career earnings of $15.8 million.

“It’s always nice to win,” said the top-seeded player after defeating the fifth-seeded American, 6-3, 6-2, at the Palatrussardi Arena.

Mayotte, who upset second-seeded John McEnroe in Saturday night’s semifinal, suffered his 16th defeat in as many head-to-head matches against Lendl since 1980.

Lendl lost his serve once in each set but broke Mayotte three times in each set. The key game was the fifth in the first set, when Lendl struggled 16 minutes before breaking Mayotte’s serve by exploiting a ninth break-point.

Sunday’s victory in the first European event of the 1990 ATP tour gave Lendl the 85th title of his career and the second this year following the Australian Open.

Mayotte, who earned $45,800, scored a few winning volleys but made several unforced errors when he traded groundstrokes from the baseline with Lendl.

Lendl, who downed Jim Courier and Pete Sampras in quarterfinal and semifinal matches, said he will concentrate this year on trying for his first victory at Wimbledon. He reiterated he will train about two months on grass, skipping the French and Italian Opens, to improve his grass play.

Andre Agassi inaugurated the new ATP tour with a 6-1, 6-3 victory over Todd Witsken in the final of the $250,000 Volvo tournament at San Francisco.

It was the ninth title of Agassi’s four-year pro career, just the second since he rose to No. 3 in the world at age 18 in November, 1988. He has since slipped to eighth, but he began 1990 as if he intends to make a run at the top five again.

“(Last year) was a year I needed to catch up with things,” Agassi said. “I feel good about where I am. I’ve learned a lot from last year, and I’m more prepared this time if things come down on me.”

Ginger Helgeson of Pepperdine rallied from a 2-5 third-set deficit to beat Florida freshman Andrea Farley, 6-2, 3-6, 7-5, and win the National Indoor Intercollegiate Championships in Minneapolis.

Todd Martin of Northwestern defeated Steve Bryan of Texas, 7-6 (7-0), 6-3, to win the third leg of the Collegiate Grand Slam.