Borg favoured in tennis

Press, 12 June 1978, Page 28

Borg favoured in tennis

NZPA-Reuter Paris Bjorn Borg, of Sweden, and Guillermo Vilas, of Argentina, yesterday proved the seedings right by easily winning through to the men’s singles final at the French open tennis championships. Borg took just 81 minutes to club Italy’s Corrado Barazzutti into submission, 6-0, 6-1, 6-0, while Vilas needed a little longer, 107 minutes, to beat an off-form ick Stockton, of the United States, 6-3, 6-3, 6-2. It was all disappointingly one-sided for the packed centre court crowd at the sun-drenched Roland Garros Stadium, many of whom paid black market prices to ticket touts to get in. Today’s final will be the seventeenth time the two men have met. Borg holds 12-4 advantage, and few experts who have watched the Swede in action in Paris for the last fortnight would put money on Vilas this time. Borg, aged 22, bidding to regain the French title he won in 1974 and 1975, reached the final without dropping a single set. Mimi Jausovec, of Yugo-

slavia, will defend her women’s singles title against the powerful 19-year-old, Virginia Ruzici, of Rumania, in a match which is likely to test the little Yugoslav’s powers of resistance. Across the English Channel at Beckenham, Brian Fairlie (New Zealand), partnering Ismail el Shafei, of Egypt, beat Phil Dent (Australia) and Busier Mottram (Britain) in the men’s doubles final at the Kentish grass court championships yesterday. Fairlie and Shafei won, 2-6, 6-2, 6-1.

Evonne Cawley, Australia’s 1971 Wimbledon champion, captured her second British title in successive weeks when she won the women’s singles final. She beat Laura Dupont (U.S.A.), 6-4, 6-2. Jimmy Connors, of the United States, won the men’s singles final, defeating another American, Stan Smith, 9-8, 6-3.

And at Manchester, the Canterbury player, Christine Newton, was beaten in her singles semi-final by Britain’s C. Molesworth in the Greater Manchester northern tennis championship yesterday. She lost, 2-6, 6-4, 4-6.