Nystrom Beats Gerulaitis in Masters Tennis

Sweden’s Joakim Nystrom advanced easily into the quarterfinals of the $400,000 Volvo Masters tennis championships after crushing Vitas Gerulaitis, 6-3, 6-4, in a first-round match Wednesday night. In the final opening-round pairing, Czechoslovakia’s Tomas Smid played Eliot Teltscher, with the winner advancing to the quarterfinals where he will meet Jimmy Connors, the No. 2 seeded player. Controlling play with his backcourt game, Nystrom crushed Gerulaitis in a match not nearly as close as the score may indicate. The victory advanced him into a quarterfinal battle against third-seeded Ivan Lendl on Friday. Nystrom, one of four Swedish players to qualify for this elite event, fell behind Gerulaitis when he lost his service in the third game of the opening set. But he broke the flamboyant New York right-hander right back in the fourth game, then again in the sixth en route to his first-set triumph. In the second set, the two traded four consecutive service breaks. When the 21-year-old Swede held his own serve in the sixth game, the two were even. But Nystrom, ranked 11th in the world on the Assn of Tennis Professionals computer, broke Gerulaitis again in the seventh game, then lost only one point in his next two service games to advance to the quarterfinals. Nystrom was particularly sharp from the baseline with his accurate and hard-paced passing shots. Gerulaitis tried to attack at every chance, but he found himself repeatedly passed when he did venture to the net. Gerulaitis, who came within a serve of winning the Volvo Masters three years ago when he led Lendl two sets to love and had match-point in the third set before collapsing, is ranked 17th in the world. The top four seeded players in this 12-player, season-ending tournament at Madison Square Garden, received first-round byes.