McEnroe Takes It Out on Amritraj, 6-2, 6-0

Vijay Amritraj must feel like the kid who gets spanked for a bad thing someone else did.

John McEnroe punished Amritraj on Wednesday night with such fury that it was as if Amritraj, not Ivan Lendl, had been the one who swiped the U.S. Open title from him.

In less than one hour, McEnroe avenged a loss to Amritraj a year ago at Cincinnati and dredged up the bitter disappointment of the Open earlier this month.

His 6-2, 6-0 first-round win in the Volvo tournament at the Los Angeles Tennis Center at UCLA took only 55 minutes, but it took even less time for McEnroe to sizzle.

“McEnroe is rarely this hot in a first-round match,” Amritraj said. “He usually plays himself into a tournament. The loss in Cincinnati obviously got him going.”

Among other things. Amritraj could complain that he was punished for something he didn’t do.

Apparently, McEnroe is still seething about the scheduling at the Open that resulted in his playing a grueling semifinal against Mats Wilander on a Saturday and coming back to play Lendl in the final on Sunday. Lendl won, 7-6, 6-3, 6-4.

McEnroe was irked at what he viewed as CBS-TV’s dictating the tournament schedule to fit its own scheduling needs.

“It’s disgusting what television does,” McEnroe said, sitting in a press room that was bathed in television lights.

“It’s unbelievable what CBS can do. The idea of a two-week tournament is to give a guy a rest. I don’t think it’s possible to ask a guy to play a best-of-five-sets match day in and day out. Especially in the heat.

“I would be willing to take less money to see the sport become pure. I feel cheated. It cheats the fans and it cheats the public. People would have seen a match to be remembered.”

It’s clear that McEnroe won’t soon forget. Nor will his body. He said he was stiff and sore after the physically and emotionally draining five-set win over Wilander in New York’s wilting heat and humidity. Then, for the final, McEnroe faced Lendl, who’d had a much easier semifinal against Jimmy Connors.

Again, the fault of scheduling.

“The same thing happened to me the year before,” McEnroe said. “Lendl was tired from his match the day before. He was stiff. I saw him in the locker room before the match and he was stiff.

“I took a few days off (after the Open). I was very sore. It’s difficult to come back after something like that. There’s not a whole lot I can do about it but get over it.”

One way to drown your sorrows is to teach them to win. That was clearly the plan Wednesday. In the chilly night air, McEnroe pounded serve after serve to Amritraj, who was reduced to either sticking his racket in the path of the ball or watching as it blasted by for an ace.

“As I’ve always maintained, to beat him you have to serve with him,” Amritraj said.

Amritraj’s own powerful serve deserted him. And with McEnroe running him around the court with a variety of shots, Amritraj quickly fell out of rhythm.

McEnroe broke Amritraj’s serve in the third and seventh games of the first set. That was accomplished when Amritraj’s first serve wilted and McEnroe pounced on the weaker second serves. Meanwhile, McEnroe’s serve became, as usual, his most potent weapon.

As McEnroe continued to dominate the match in the second set, many in the crowd of 7,165 shifted allegiance to the courtly Amritraj. Shouts of “Go Vijay” rang out, as well as the occasional “Murder ‘em, Mac!” There was even a “Go Tatum,” a reference to McEnroe’s girlfriend, actress Tatum O’Neal.

Having moved easily through the first round, McEnroe said he is concentrating on “playing the best tennis I can” and not looking ahead to future matches.

However, McEnroe is certainly mindful of his world ranking, which has dropped to No. 2 (Lendl is No. 1).

How important is that No. 1 ranking?

“I think it means more to you if you lose it,” McEnroe said. “It’s hard to do the stuff I do and not be No. 1. I can put up with being No. 2, eventually. For now . . . anytime someone takes something away you want to do anything you can to get it back.”

In second-round matches Wednesday afternoon, fourth-seeded Johan Kriek survived two tie-breakers to beat Tim Wilkison, 6-7, 7-6, 6-2. Third-seeded Scott Davis of Santa Monica defeated unseeded Bud Schultz, 6-2, 6-2, and fifth-seeded Brad Gilbert beat Marcel Freeman, 7-6, 6-2.

McEnroe will play Ken Flach in a 7:30 match tonight.