TENNIS ROUNDUP : Lendl Routed in First Round of Italian Open

Ivan Lendl, who has won three French Opens, blamed the poorest clay-court performance of his career on the claim that the surface wasn’t up to standard.

Marcelo Filippini of Uruguay, ranked No. 67 in the world, routed Lendl, 6-2, 6-1, Tuesday in the first round of the Italian Open at Rome.

Lendl, the fifth-seeded player and at 33 the tournament’s oldest player, described the clay surface as being “like a hard court with sand on top of it. The ground was very slippery. It was hard to keep my balance.”

He dropped 11 consecutive points in the second set.

In other first-round matches, defending champion Jim Courier routed qualifier Horacio De La Pena of Argentina, 6-2, 6-1, and Boris Becker overpowered Andrei Cherkasov, 6-4, 6-3.

Neither Becker nor Courier complained about the surface.

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Jimmy Connors was eliminated by Patrick McEnroe, 7-5, 7-5, in the first round of America’s Red Clay Championship at Coral Springs, Fla.

It was the first time the two played since their stirring match at the U.S. Open two years ago, when Connors rebounded from a two-set, 0-3 deficit to win a five-set marathon. Connors them made a dramatic march to the semifinals.

Connors, 40, has played in only five tournaments this year, going out in the first round in four of them.

In another first-round match, seventh-seeded Derrick Rostagno of Pacific Palisades was upset by Alex O’Brien, 7-6 (7-5), 6-1.

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Defending champion Steffi Graf made quick work of Argentina’s Florencia Labat, 6-0, 6-2, in a second-round match at the German Open in Berlin that lasted only 43 minutes.

Graf has dominated the tournament since 1986, winning every year except 1990, when Monica Seles was the winner.