Tennis Roundup : $700,000 Racket Will Be Lendl’s If He Wins

Czechoslovakia’s Ivan Lendl thrashed Sweden’s Anders Jarryd, and John McEnroe stopped West Germany’s Boris Becker Saturday to advance to the final of the $850,000 European Champions’ championship at Antwerp, Belgium.

Lendl convincingly beat Jarryd, 6-3, 6-2, in a two-hour semifinal of the world’s richest indoor tournament after McEnroe defeated the 17-year-old Becker, 6-3, 6-4.

If Lendl, the world’s top-ranked player, beats McEnroe, who is ranked second, today, he collects $200,000 in cash plus the Antwerp Diamond Trophy, a life-size, 13.2-pound gold racket studded with 1,420 diamonds totaling 100 carats.

The racket, valued by tournament organizers at $700,000, is for the player who wins the event three times in a five-year span. Lendl won the 1982 inaugural and last year. McEnroe won in 1983.

Lendl’s victory over Jarryd, 24, was never in doubt. The 25-year-old Czech served well and passed sharply from anywhere along his baseline.

“I feel good now,” Lendl said. “My confidence is really high. If I do not win tomorrow, I hope I can come back next year and play John (McEnroe) for the racket.”

Today’s Lendl-McEnroe match will be the first clash between the two since they met in the U.S. Open final. The New Yorker lost that match as well as his No. 1 world ranking to Lendl.

Top-seeded Hana Mandlikova of Czechoslovakia and defending champion Zina Garrison scored contrasting straight-set victories to reach today’s final of the $150,000 European women’s indoor championship.

Mandlikova, the U.S. Open champion, had a tough battle before overcoming fourth-seeded compatriot Helena Sukova, 6-2, 7-6, while third-seeded Garrison overpowered West Germany’s Claudia Kohde-Kilsch 6-3, 6-2.

At Williamsburg, Va., Chris Evert Lloyd and Pam Shriver teamed up to defeat Jo Durie and Anne Hobbs, 6-3, 6-7, 6-2, as the United States swept Great Britain, 7-0, in the 57th Wightman Cup team competition.

Earlier in the day, with the U.S. victory in the annual team competition already assured, Lloyd dispatched Britain’s Annabel Croft, 6-3, 6-0, and Shriver defeated Durie, 6-4, 6-4.