TENNIS ROUNDUP : Edberg Defeats Chang, Faces Lendl

Top-seeded Stefan Edberg defeated fifth-seeded Michael Chang, 7-5, 6-2, Saturday in the men’s semifinals of the Japan Open at Tokyo, setting up a meeting against second-seeded Ivan Lendl in today’s final.

Lendl beat Jim Courier, 6-4, 6-1.

Edberg, seeking his fourth Japan Open title, beat Chang in a match interrupted for 40 minutes because rainwater leaked through the retractable roof.

Edberg, trailing 1-4 in the first set, won six of the next seven games. In the second set, Edberg broke the fifth game and kept the next game without losing a point. Edberg also broke the seventh game after two deuces, as Chang double-faulted and often hit into the net.

Lori McNeil came back from an opening-set loss to defeat second-seeded Sabine Appelmans of Belgium, 2-6, 6-2, 6-1, in the women’s final.

The seventh-seeded McNeil, after losing the first set, began coming to the net and playing a serve-and-volley game. She was in on only 48% of first serves in the first set, but improved to 64% and 69% in the second and third sets.

McNeil’s victory was her second this year. She won the Colorado Classic in February.

After a week of avoiding the temptation to look ahead, Steffi Graf and Gabriela Sabatini will be staring one another in the face today in the final of the Bausch & Lomb Championships at Amelia Island, Fla.

The biggest rivalry in women’s tennis will be renewed when the two top-seeded players in the $350,000 clay-court tournament play for the fourth time this season.

Sabatini, seeded second, advanced by outlasting Arantxa Sanchez Vicario, 6-2, 2-6, 6-4, and top-seeded Graf beat Patty Fendick, 6-0, 6-1.

Graf will try to win the $350,000 clay-court tournament for the fourth time. Graf beat Sanchez Vicario in last year’s final at Amelia Island Plantation.

Fendick, playing in a clay court tournament for the first time since 1983, reached the semifinals by upsetting fourth-seeded Zina Garrison, but she was no match for Graf.

Emilio Sanchez Vicario and Sergi Bruguera won semifinal matches, both against Argentine opponents, to set up the first all-Spanish final since 1969 in the Count of Godo tournament at Barcelona.

Sanchez Vicario, seeded seventh, defeated unseeded Martin Jaite, 7-5, 6-2, and Bruguera beat 10th-seeded Guillermo Perez-Roldan, 6-4, 6-4.

“I’ve broken a jinx,” Sanchez Vicario said. It was the first time he made it to a final in seven tournaments since last winning last year’s Estoril Open.