Upsets in French Open

Press, 5 June 1982, Page 60

Upsets in French Open

NZPA-Reuter Paris The last four in the men's singles competition of the French Open tennis championships take to the courts today to decide who faces who in Monday's final. All eyes will be on the Swedish outsider Mats Wilander, a 17-year-old who although he does not like it, is being compared with the great Bjorn Borg both in style and ability. He faces Argentina’s clay court specialist Jose LuisClerc, who is seeded fourth.

Wilander already has two formidable scalps on his belt, those of the pre-tournament favourite Ivan Lendl of Czechoslovakia and the United States player. Vitas Gerulaitis. Neither could stay with the youngster, who rarely shows emotion on court and uses the same heavy, twofisted top-spin backhand shots as Borg.

In the other semi-final Jose Higueras, the four-teenth-seeded Spaniard, faces the power of Argentina’s Guillermo Vilas, the third seed who ended the challenge of French favourite Yannick Noah.

Higueras, a subtle, imperturbable player who revels in the slowness of the clay court, snuffed out the top seed Jimmy Connors in straight sets on Thursday. American hopes for any share in the singles plunder rest solely with Andrea Jaeger who is 18 years old today, who yesterday beat the top seed Chris EvertLloyd, 6-3, 6-1.

She meets Czecho-slovakian-born Martina Navratilova of the United States, who provided the fastest demolition job of the championships when she crushed the . defending champion', Hana Mandlikova of Czechoslovakia, 6-0, 6-1, in 41

minutes. Miss Jaeger, seeded fourth, took only 68 minutes to defeat Mrs Evert-Lloyd, who looked listless and out of form. In a monotonous match consisting mainly of long, baseline rallies,' Mrs EvertLloyd made a number of unforced errors leaving Miss Jaeger to control the play. Miss Navratilova’s victory was so fast in fact that the computerised scoreboard in the press room failed to keep pace. Miss Navratilova, who lost to Miss Mandlikova at the same stage at Wimbledon a year ago, said she had not expected such an easy match? as yesterday’s contest proved to be'for her. New Zealand’s Russell Simpson reached the semi-finals of the G.M.C.Moben Kitchens Open grasscourt tournament at Manchester yesterday. In the Men’s Singles Quar-

ter-finals yesterday he beat Tim Gullikson (U.S.) 7-5, 4-6. 6-3. In today's semi-finals Simpson . meets another American John Sadri, the number two seed. John McEnroe’s tennis still has room for improvement, but the Wimbledon champion showed he was approaching his best vocal form as he reached the semi-finals of the tournament yesterday. McEnroe, who had his Wednesday programme washed out by rain, had to play two singles' matches to catch up. His first was peaceful enough — 6-2, 6-0, against the British junior Nick Fulwood in the third round. But the oppostion became a little more fierce in the quarter finals, and McEnroe- needed 97 minutes to beat fellow American Jay Lapidus 6-3, 6-4. \ In today’s semi-finals he meets Australian Davis Cup player John Alexander.