WIMBLEDON REPORT : Jarryd, Fitzgerald Are Double Tough to Win Men’s Final

of the most talented doubles players in the game, Anders Jarryd of Sweden, did it again here Saturday, winning his second Wimbledon men’s doubles title with John Fitzgerald of Australia.

Jarryd, who will turn 30 next Saturday, teamed with Fitzgerald to beat Javier Frana of Argentina and Leonardo Lavalle of Mexico, 6-3, 6-4, 6-7 (7-9), 6-1, in Saturday’s final.

“This feels good,” Jarryd said. “Last year we had a tough year and both of us were injured and everything, I think, went against us when we played here.”

Jarryd and Fitzgerald were defending champions in 1990 when they collided in a first-round match, and Jarryd hurt his ribs so badly they had to default. So returning to win this year was especially nice for Jarryd, who, like fellow Swede Stefan Edberg, resides in London.

Besides his two Wimbledon titles with Fitzgerald, Jarryd has also won Grand Slam doubles championships at French in 1983 with Hans Simonsson, and three in 1987: the Australian and U.S. Open with Edberg and the French with Robert Seguso.

In the women’s doubles, second-seeded Larisa Savchenko and Natalia Zvereva of the Soviet Union outlasted the top seeds, Gigi Fernandez and Jana Novotna, 6-4, 3-6, 6-4.

Finally: Boris Becker and Michael Stich, today’s men’s finalists, have played only once before, on the fast carpet in the 1990 Paris Indoor. Becker won, 6-1, 6-3. . . . Today will be Becker’s 46th career final on the tour. His record is 30-15. This will be Stich’s fifth career final. He won his first in Memphis in 1990, then lost his next three this year. . . . When Stich won his three tiebreakers to beat Edberg without breaking his serve in the semifinal, it brought his tiebreaker record for 1991 to 19-12, most tiebreaker victories of any men’s player on the tour this year. . . . Edberg played six matches and lost a total of three service games in 19 sets. . . . Becker’s move up to No. 1 in the rankings after his semifinal victory and Edberg’s loss marked the second time this year that he has been No. 1. The first time, after his Australian Open victory in January, he held the top spot only three weeks, shortest reign ever for a No. 1 player.

Odds and Ends--The official Wimbledon weather forecast for today read: “Sunny but with a rather greater risk of showers during the afternoon.” The men’s final begins at 2 p.m. London time. . . . Gabriela Sabatini proved Saturday, in her women’s final loss to Steffi Graf, that getting your first serve in doesn’t guarantee victory. Sabatini got 86% of her first serves in--she only missed 14 times--and still lost. Sabatini isn’t hitting serves very hard. They usually put radar guns on servers here, but to measure Sabatini’s, they use a sun dial. . . . Sabatini was making her first appearance in a Wimbledon final, and that was characterized by Ronald Atkins of the Observer as follows: “It is Steffi Graf, twice a champion here, versus Gabriela Sabatini, making her first curtsy on the biggest day in women’s tennis.”