Tennis Roundup : Maleeva Outlasts Gadusek to Win

Manuela Maleeva of Bulgaria, playing the longest match of her professional career, struggled to a 7-6, 3-6, 7-5 victory over Bonnie Gadusek of the United States Sunday and won the $300,000 Pan Pacific Open tennis tournament at Tokyo for the second straight year.

Maleeva, 18, needed 2 hours 43 minutes to win the battle of long baseline rallies. On the last two points, she chased Gadusek wide to her right and then blasted the ball into the other corner.

Gadusek, 22, of Largo, Fla., displaying fine ground strokes, broke Maleeva in the third game and went on to lead 4-2 and 40-love on Maleeva’s serve. But Maleeva saved that game and eventually caught up at 5-5. She capitalized on some errors by Gadusek for a 7-2 victory in the tiebreaker.

Frenchman Henri Leconte beat Kelly Evernden, 6-7, 6-2, 6-3, to win the final of the $145,000 New South Wales Open at Sydney, Australia.

An awed Evernden said the left-handed Leconte was “unbeatable” after losing in a two-hour match.

“I’ve played Jimmy Connors and Boris Becker, but I never felt so helpless as I did out there today,” Evernden said. “I felt I was in the match the whole time against those guys, but against Henri I felt I had no prayer.”