Tennis Roundup : Wilander Struggles Past Unseeded Spaniard

Top-seeded Mats Wilander of Sweden had to struggle with unseeded Emilio Sanchez of Spain before coming away with a 6-2, 2-6, 6-3 victory Thursday in the third round of the $435,000 Italian International Championships at Rome.

Yannick Noah of France upset third-seeded Anders Jarryd of Sweden, 6-1, 7-5, leaving just Wilander and Henrik Sundstrom of Sweden remaining among the top five seeded players.

The fifth-seeded Sundstrom defeated Italy’s top player, Francesco Cancellotti, 6-3, 6-1.

Wilander, 20, ranked fourth in the world, needed only 32 minutes to wrap up the first set against the 19-year-old Sanchez, but it became more difficult after that.

Sanchez duplicated the time and the score in the second set as Wilander made several unforced errors at the net.

Wilander regained control with a 4-1 lead in the deciding set in 85-degree heat, but Sanchez pulled within 3-5 by denying Wilander on his first match point.

Wilander finally won when Sanchez returned a serve weakly into the net after 1 hour 46 minutes.

In other matches, unseeded Italian Claudio Mezzadri, ranked 183rd in the world, upset 16th-seeded Guillermo Vilas of Argentina, 6-3, 6-2; unseeded Swede Jan Gunnarsson gained the quarterfinals with a 4-6, 6-4, 6-3 upset of 11th-seeded Jimmy Arias, the 1983 Italian champion; 1981 winner Jose-Luis Clerc of Argentina topped Tomas Smid of Czechoslovakia, 6-4, 6-2, and Miloslav Mecir of Czechoslovakia beat 17-year-old qualifier Kent Carlsson of Sweden, 7-6, 6-4.

Top-seeded Chris Evert Lloyd downed Pascale Paradis of France, 6-3, 6-2, to move into the quarterfinals of the $150,000 West German Women’s Open at West Berlin.

The 30-year-old American, ranked second in the world, controlled the match throughout and made few unforced errors. Paradis at times stunned the experienced Lloyd with hard forehands but often misfired what should have been easy winners.

“She wasn’t consistent but she is a good player,” Lloyd said. “I served well, and that was my main concern. Pascale serves very hard, and I was just trying to hold mine and break her serve.

“She breaks your rhythm and doesn’t really let you get into the match. It wasn’t as easy as the score may suggest.”

In other matches, Lisa Bonder defeated Terry Phelps, 6-7, 6-2, 6-3; Claudia Kohde of West Germany beat Niege Dias of Brazil, 6-3, 6-3; 15-year-old Steffi Graf of West Germany routed Etsuko Inoue of Japan, 6-1, 6-0; Bettina Bunge of West Germany defeated Angeliki Kanellopoulou of Greece, 6-2, 6-1; Catarina Lindquist of Sweden ousted Catherine Tanvier of France, 6-2, 6-2; Kathy Rinaldi beat Iva Budarova of Czechoslovakia, 6-7, 6-4, 6-2, and Kathy Horvath downed Carina Karlsson of Sweden 6-3, 6-1.

Third-seeded Barbara Potter outlasted Lea Antonoplis, 5-7, 6-4, 6-3, to reach the quarterfinals of the $110,000 National Women’s Indoor tournament at Melbourne, Australia.

Antonoplis shocked Potter at the start of the match with a series of pinpoint returns and confident volleys that gave her the first set.

But Antonoplis’ return of serve deserted her in the second set. Potter broke serve in the sixth and eighth games of the final set, taking the match after Antonoplis managed to stave off one match point.

In other matches, Annabel Croft and Amanda Brown of Great Britain earned quarter-final berths, along with seventh-seeded Ann Henricksson.

Croft defeated Heather Ludloff, 5-7, 6-2, 6-2; Brown beat Sara Gomer, also of Britain, 6-2, 4-6, 6-3, and Henricksson defeated Lisa Spain-Short, 7-5, 6-4.