Roundup : Navratilova, Graf Win, Advance to Third Round

NEW YORK â€”  Top-seeded Martina Navratilova and No. 3-seeded Steffi Graf each scored straight-set victories Thursday to advance to the third round of the U.S. Open Tennis Championship.

Seeking her third women’s singles title in four years, Navratilova defeated Betsy Nagelsen, 6-2, 7-5, while Graf, the West German teen-ager, overwhelmed Hungary’s Andrea Temesvari, 6-1, 6-0.

The third day of play in America’s premier tennis event got a late start because of morning-long rains. The rain caused 18 scheduled matches to be postponed, including second-round men’s singles matches between fourth-seeded Stefan Edberg of Sweden and Kevin Curren and between India’s Ramesh Krishnan and Mexico’s Leonardo Lavalle.

Among the men who were able to play their second-round matches were top-seeded Ivan Lendl, eighth-seeded Henri Leconte of France and Johan Kriek. Lendl, playing at night, easily defeated Robert Seguso, 6-3, 6-1, 6-2; Leconte overwhelmed Horacio de la Pena of Argentina, 6-1, 6-2, 6-0, and Kriek defeated John Sadri, 6-3, 6-3, 6-4.

The only seeded player to fall was No. 11 Mikael Pernfors of Sweden, who was eliminated by Andrei Chesnokov of the Soviet Union, 6-4, 4-6, 4-6, 6-3, 6-4, in a marathon night match that ran 3 hours 49 minutes.

Second-round winners among the women included No. 5 Pam Shriver, No. 8 Bonnie Gadusek and No. 15 Kathy Jordan. Shriver beat Csilla Bartos-Cserepy of Hungary, 7-6, 6-0; Gadusek topped Australia’s Elizabeth Smylie, 6-3, 6-4, and Jordan defeated Marianne Werdel, 6-0, 6-3.

But it was Navratilova and Graf who received the most attention.

Navratilova breezed through the first set in 23 minutes after breaking Nagelsen’s serve to begin the match. And she took a 2-1 lead in the second set after breaking Nagelsen at love in the third game.

But Nagelsen broke right back and the two stayed on serve until the 11th game. After battling to deuce, Navratilova broke her opponent to grab a 6-5 lead. She then held serve to close out the 61-minute match, the final point coming on a service winner.

Graf beat her Hungarian foe in just 39 minutes, the quickest match so far in this tournament, and showed she had fully recovered from the viral infection and broken toe that kept her off the women’s tour for most of the summer.

The 17-year-old Graf, seeded to meet Navratilova in the semifinals, was overpowering against Temesvari, who was ranked seventh in the world two years ago.

“She’s certainly a threat on this surface,� Navratilova said of Graf. “Overall, she hits the ball harder and doesn’t make as many errors as she used to. She doesn’t miss that much. That’s the mark of a winner.�

Graf won four consecutive tournaments earlier this year, defeating both Lloyd and Navratilova.

Graf began the match by holding serve. Then Temesvari did the same--the last time in the match she would win a game.

Graf had only two aces, the same as Temesvari, but committed only five unforced errors, four off her feared forehand. Temesvari had 23 unforced errors and many errors that were forced.

Graf reached the quarterfinals of the French Open early in June before losing to Czechoslovakia’s Hana Mandlikova, the defending U.S. Open champion. She then was forced to miss Wimbledon because of the viral infection and didn’t return to play until the Federation Cup in July. But she broke a toe in a freak off-court accident and didn’t return until last week, when she won the United Jersey Bank tournament in Mahwah, N.J.