Dibbs downs McEnroe

Press, 10 May 1982, Page 42

Dibbs downs McEnroe

NZPA-Reuter New York The tenth-seeded Eddie Dibbs upset the top-seed John McEnroe, 7-6, 6-3, and the second-seeded Ivan Lendl beat the third-seeded JoseLuis Clerc of Argentina, 6-2, 7-5, yesterday to advance to the final of the Tournament of Tennis Champions at Forest Hills. Dibbs’ victory stunned a near-capacity gallery of 13,439 at the West Side Tennis Club and precluded an anticipated showdown between McEnroe and Lendl, who is seriously challenging the Wimbledon and United States Open champion for the World’s No. 1 ranking. The 31-year-old Dibbs, ranked only twenty-second in the world, beat Carlos Kirmayr .of Brazil in last year’s

final of this event which brings together the winners of at least one tournament of $U525,000 or more during the past 12 months. Lendl’s triumph over Clerc, who gave the Czechoslovak his first stiff test following four easy victories, was his eighty-eighth in his last 91 matches and enabled him to reach a final for the seventeenth straight tournament since losing to Vitas Gerulaitis in last year’s United States Open. McEnroe, who had struggled in winning his last three matches on the clay court surface at Forest Hills in part because of a nagging ankle injury, played poorly and squandered numerous opportunities against Dibbs, one of the world's best claycourt players.