Herb Bascome, battling the sun, tired limbs and a wily veteran opponent, came from a set down to defeat fellow American Dick Mount 3-6, 6-2, 6-4 to win the first title of the Bermuda Lawn Tennis Club Invitational at the Coral Beach Tennis Club yesterday.

Bascome lifted the Men's 65 singles crown in just under two hours.

Remembering a year ago when he lost in the title game to King Van Nostrand 6-4, 7-6, Bascome didn't want to become the competition's first losing finalist in consecutive years, even though things weren't looking too good during the early going.

After losing the first set and on serve through the first three games of the second, Bascome altered his game and began to bring his opponent to the net with deft drop shots and then the lob, both of which continued to keep Mount off balance.

This strategy proved effective because he ran off 10 of the next 11 games to take the second set 6-2, and a 5-1 lead in the third and deciding set. Play was on serve until the fifth game when the Philadelphia resident forced Mount into two costly errors to take the important break, and a 3-2 lead.

After holding to go ahead 4-2, and breaking Mount at 15 for a 5-2 lead, Bascome was then serving for the match and his first Bermuda title.

That is when things started to fall apart as the wily Mount held off two match points to break, then held serve to make the contest interesting at 5-4.

With the title on the line for Bascome in the 10th game, again serving for the silverware, he made a costly mistake with an unforced error into the net, but came back with a superb forehand deep to the backhand court, a forehand volley down the line, and with Mount committing an unforced error for a 40-love advantage, Bascome closed out the match with a short return that brought his opponent to the net, before drilling a well-timed shot across court for the victory.

In the two men's semi-finals, top seed Ted Hoehn retired with a pulled muscle when leading third seed Ron Groff 6-3, 4-5 while second seed Scott Estes proved to be far too strong for former Bermuda champion, Vernal Davis, not only winning in straight sets, but never allowing Davis into the match, taking it 6-1, 6-0.

In a stroke of rare occurrence, especially in the long history of the Bermuda Lawn Tennis Club, participants from the three oldest chartered tennis clubs in North America are in Bermuda for the week.

Representing the New Orleans Lawn & Tennis Club are Jane and Dennis Cross. Their club was formed in 1876, while in 1877 the Longwood Cricket Club of Massachusetts was formed and representing them are Janet Green and Dick Mount. The third oldest chartered tennis club in North America is the Merion Cricket Club of Pennsylvania, which is represented by Ashley Vincent.

Mount was in a final yesterday, while Green and Cross will be in action today and tomorrow.