Day of upsets at tennis

Press, 7 September 1984, Page 32

Day of upsets at tennis

NZPA-Reuter New York

Pat Cash became the first Australian men’s player to reach the semi-finals of the United States tennis Open in a decade when he upset the fourth seed, Mats Wilander, of Sweden, 7-6, 6-4, 2-6, 6-3. The victory by Cash, the fifteenth seed, followed Carling Bassett, of Canada’s 6-4, 6-3 upset of the thirdseeded Hana Mandlikova, of Czechoslovakia, and the veteran Australian, Wendy Turnbull’s stunning 2-6, 6-3, 6-3 win over the fourth seed, Pam Shriver. Cash next meets the second-seed, Ivan Lendl, of Czechoslovakia, who beat the fifth seed, Andres Gomez, of Ecuador, for the sixth time in seven meetings, 6-4, 6-4, 6-1. - Lendl held his throughout while saving

break-points twice in the first set and once in the third.

Cash, aged 19, goes into tomorrow’s semi-final after losing only, one of 16 sets in the Open. The defending champion and top seed, Martina Navratilova, and the secondseeded Chris Evert-Lloyd also reached the semi-finals.

Navratilova won her fifty-third consecutive match this year when she beat the unseeded Helena Sukova, of Czechoslovakia, 6-3, 6-3. Evert-Lloyd got into the semi-finals for the fourteenth successive year, beating Sylvia Hanika, of West Germany, 6-2, 6-3. Navratilova will play Turnbull and Evert-Lloyd will meet Bassett. Navratilova had to raise her game to its highest level in beating Sukova, a highly-

talented 19-year-old who is one of the most powerful hitters and strongest servers on the women’s circuit.

. The match was much closer than the scores indicated. Sukova, who has climbed to 18 in the rankings, broke serve twice as she volleyed well and passed her opponent often with crisp ground strokes.

But the teenager squandered three game points in the sixth game of the first set and again in the first game of the second set, along with a break-point in the ninth game of the opening set.

The defending men’s doubles champions, John McEnroe and Peter Fleming, of the United States, we® knocked out of the tournament yesterday by

Sweden’s Stefan Edberg and Anders Jarryd. The eighth-seeded Swedish pair beat the three-time Open doubles champions, 36, 7-6, 7-5, 7-6 in the semifinals and will play the Australian, John Fitzgerald, and Tomas Smid, of Czechoslovakia, the seventh seeds, in the final.

Fitzgerald and Smid, who' beat the second seeds Mark Edmondson, of Australia, and the American, Sherwood Stewart, in the quar-ter-finals, advanced with a 7-6, 3-6, 6-1, 6-4 win over Heinz Gunthardt, of Switzerland, and Balazs Taroczy, of Hungary. Edberg and Jarryd completed the three-hour 13min. victory over the reigning Wimbledon champions by winning the fourth set tiebreaker, 7-2. They Raptured the first tiebreake®o-8.

It was McEnroe and Fleming’s second doubles match of the day. They beat the Briton, John Lloyd, and the American, Dick Stockton 6-1, 6-1, 6-3 in a quarterfinal match.

Turnbull’s victory meant Australia had its first men’s and women’s Open semifinalists in the same year since 1974 when Ken Rosewall and Evonne Goolagong. reached the final four.

Shriver, who beat Navratilova at the Open in 1978 and in 1980, was bitterly disappointed after her defeat.

“I think it’s unfortunate that Wendy is going to play Martina: It’s ■ not good for women’s tennis. But it’s my fault. I should be in the semi-finals and I’m not. I played stupid, dumb, inconsistent tennis,” she said.