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Chris Evert Lloyd and Jimmy Connors, showing their championship...

By OLIVE TALLEY

HOUSTON -- Chris Evert Lloyd and Jimmy Connors, showing their championship strength, overcame Canadian teenager Carling Bassett and former actor Vince Van Patten to advance to the semifinals of the $400,000 World Mixed Doubles Championship.

Three other top seeds of the tournament, including Sweden's Bjorn Borg and West Germany's Bettina Bunge, were eliminated in stunning upsets Friday.

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Connors and Evert Lloyd, playing together for the first time since they broke off their engagement nine years ago, fought off three set points in the first set to force a tiebreaker that went to eight points.

The former 'Love Doubles' team was down 6-4 for set point in the tiebreaker when Connors, who lost two service games in the first set, served an ace.

He won the next two points with powerful overheads, including one that struck Van Patten, to take the lead.

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Van Patten, who also lost service twice in the first set, lost the tiebreaker with a long backhand.

Connors-Evert Lloyd, using a combination of overheads and lobs to take advantage of a weak overhead return by the 16-year-old Bassett, took the match 7-6 (8-6), 6-4.

'I don't know how we got out of that first set. The tiebreaker was really tight. But after the first set, I thought we could win the second set pretty handily,' Evert Lloyd said.

Connors, who rarely plays doubles, was satisified with the effort.

'She takes care of her half (of the court) and I take care of mine. We did all that and we looked pretty good,' Connors said.

Ilie Nastase of Romania also used a big serve to team with Czechoslovakia's Hana Mandlikova for a 6-3, 6-2 upset of fourth-seeded Borg-Bunge, in which Borg injured his forehead.

Play was interruped 20 minutes in the fifth game of the first set after Borg struck his left eyebrow with his racquet while trying to hit a forehand topspin return.

'The ball took a very funny bounce,' Borg said. 'It was going fast and I didn't have time to move. I was just swinging and I hit myself with the racket.'

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The injury drew blood, but Borg said once it was bandaged, 'there was no reason to stop playing.'

'I think we lost to a good team, but I think we played all right,' Borg said of the match. 'It would be more fun if you won, but we played a good match.'

Borg said he enjoyed the rich mixed doubles event, but said he had no other tennis events scheduled.

'I don't have any plans,' he said. 'I don't have any tennis scheduled. Just when I feel like it.'

Nastase and Mandlikova aced Borg at least twice -- including the final point of the match -- and broke his serve in the fifth game of the second set to put the match away.

Roscoe Tanner, who is known for his 100-mph-plus serve, teamed with Andrea Jaeger to defeat No. 1 seeded John Lloyd of Britain and Wendy Turnbull of Australia, 6-1, 6-4. The loss eliminated the possibility of Lloyd opposing his wife, Chris Evert Lloyd, in the finals Sunday.

Tanner-Jaeger disposed of the No. 1 seeded team in 48 minutes to advance to a semifinals match against Nastase-Mandlikova.

Also Friday, Butch Walts used a big serve to help partner Betsy Nagelsen dispose of second seeded Sherwood Stewart and JoAnne Russell, 6-4, 4-6, 6-4.

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Connors-Evert Lloyd faced Nagelsen-Walts in tonight's semifinal match.

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