Forum Tennis Has Some More Bad Luck: Noah Injured

The best-laid plans of the Forum Championship Tennis series went astray Monday night--again--although this was an improvement. This time, the 4,831 fans who paid as much as $50 a seat got almost a full set from those they had come to see.

In the past, the 11-month-old project of tournament director Jeanie Buss has been a sore spot for some of the game’s top players. Literally.

Jimmy Connors inaugurated the series last April by withdrawing with a back injury. And he missed the next match in July with another ailment. January brought Martina Navratilova having to drop out with a case of the flu, and Anne White being beckoned as a last-minute replacement.

And now, two sidelined stars within a week. First, Carling Bassett was thrown from her snowmobile in Canada, so a call went out for Bonnie Gadusek to face Zina Garrison in a preliminary match. Then, in the main event, Connors and Yannick Noah were sailing along when trouble hit again.

After taking a 4-2 lead in the first set, Noah went to his right to return a Connors shot and, he said, heard a pop in his right knee. He had it examined on the sideline for 8 or 10 minutes by trainer Scott Morrison, Connors assisting with a home-made ice pack, before deciding he would retire for the night.

“Pretty soon, I’m going to be afraid to ask people to come out here,” Buss said. “I can’t explain the bad luck. That’s all it is, bad luck.”