Tennis Roundup : Lendl, Connors Lose to West Germans

Ivan Lendl and Jimmy Connors were upset by unheralded West Germans Thursday in a $350,000 tennis tournament at Stuttgart, West Germany.

Carl-Uwe Steeb edged Lendl, 7-6, 7-5, and Eric Jelen rallied to defeat Connors, 3-6, 6-4, 6-2.

Steeb and Jelen were invited to the round-robin tournament only after injuries forced Boris Becker and Andre Agassi to withdraw.

John McEnroe became the first player in the 8-man field to be certain of advancing to the semifinals, beating Tim Mayotte, 6-3, 6-2.

Lendl, formerly the world’s No. 1 player, who is making a comeback after a shoulder operation in September, needs to beat McEnroe today to reach the semifinals.

Israel’s Amos Mansdorf overcame an error-strewn performance to gain the quarterfinals of the $450,000 Benson and Hedges International Indoor championships at Wembley, England, beating Britain’s Jeremy Bates, 7-5, 6-2.

Mansdorf recently won the Paris Open and then knocked Lendl out of the European Community Championships at Antwerp, Belgium. But he struggled against Bates, who is ranked 155th.

In another second-round match, eighth-seeded John Fitzgerald of Australia rallied to beat West German Christian Saceanu, 5-7, 6-1, 6-3.

Second-seeded Chris Evert used passing shots and drop shots to defeat Rosalyn Fairbank, 6-0, 6-2, in the quarterfinals of the $250,000 Virginia Slims of Chicago.

Third-seeded Gabriela Sabatini of Argentina lost to fifth-seeded Helena Sukova of Czechoslovakia, 6-3, 2-6, 6-2; seventh-seeded Zina Garrison beat Peanut Louie Harper, 6-3, 6-2, and unseeded Ann Grossman downed sixth-seeded Natalia Zvereva of the Soviet Union, 6-3, 6-3.