Tennis Roundup : Connors Gets Aced Out by Lendl

Second-seeded Ivan Lendl served eight aces to defeat Jimmy Connors, 6-3, 6-2, for the third straight time and win the Paine Webber tournament Sunday in 110-degree heat at Sanibel Harbour Resort in Fort Myers, Fla.

The top-seeded Connors, last year’s champion of this Grand Prix event, was defeated in a stadium named for him--the Jimmy Connors U.S. Tennis Center.

In the first set, Lendl and Connors matched each other serve for serve until the sixth game, when Lendl broke Connors’ service with a topspin lob to lead, 4-2.

Lendl displayed his power in the second set, breaking Connors in the third game at love and again in the fifth game to lead, 4-1.

“Eight aces only means eight points in the match,” Connors said. “I feel that I was hitting well, but not with enough sting. In a two-of-three match, Lendl gets in there and bangs and booms.”

Lendl, who did not lose a set all tournament, earned $50,000 for the championship. Connors took home $25,000.

In the doubles championship, also played Sunday, Ken Flach and Robert Seguso defeated Sammy Giammalva and David Pate, 3-6, 6-3, 6-2. Flach and Seguso split the $15,000 prize, while Giammalva and Pate share $7,500.

John McEnroe, coming off a wrist injury that sidelined him for three weeks, swept to his fourth tournament victory of 1985, defeating error-prone Anders Jarryd of Sweden, 6-4, 6-1, in the $380,000 Fila Trophy indoor tournament at Milan, Italy.

McEnroe, who picked up $60,000 for 1 hour 6 minutes of work, boosted his year’s earnings to $283,000. He won on his first match point as a frustrated Jarryd, a member of the Swedish Davis Cup team, put a low forehand into the net, a mistake typical of his outing.

Five-time Wimbledon champion Bjorn Borg--the man McEnroe defeated for his first victory in Milan in the 1979 final--watched from the sidelines. Now retired and working for the sportswear company which sponsored the event, Borg presented McEnroe with the winner’s trophy and check.

The win was McEnroe’s fourth at Milan. In addition to the 1979 victory, he also won in 1980 and ’81. So far in 18 matches in 1985, he has dropped only two sets, which included one to Jarryd in the Masters tournament at New York in January.

Jarryd later teamed with Switzerland’s Heinz Gunthardt to beat the Australian duo of Broderick Dyke and Wally Masur, 6-2, 6-1, to win the doubles title and $18,000. Jarryd also earned $30,000 as the runner-up in the singles.

Third-seeded Kathy Horvath defeated unseeded Petra Delhees-Jauch, 3-6, 6-3, 6-3, in the singles final of the Ford Challenge Round women’s tennis tournament at Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., earning $8,000 and a playoff Friday against wild-card entry Carling Bassett of Canada.

The winner of that match will join Chris Evert Lloyd, Pam Shriver and Hana Mandlikova in a two-day tournament for the $100,000 first prize.

Delhees-Jauch entered the tournament as No. 96 on the women’s tour, but eliminated three seeded players.

In the doubles final, JoAnne Russell and Anne Smith defeated Laura Arraya-Gildemeister of Peru and Gabriela Sabatini of Argentina, 1-6, 6-1, 7-6.