WIMBLEDON : Di Shows Up, and Cash Stays : Princess Leaves a Bit Early, but Australian Finishes Off Wilander on Centre Court

Princess Di picked a pretty good day. She put on something white--which is what the well-dressed Wimbledonian wears, luv --and then parked it in the royal box Monday, to enjoy a spot of tennis.

Whether she wore tennis shoes , we could not tell. But Diana was accompanied by somebody called Lady Keswick, not by her husband. Charles was probably out playing a couple of sets himself, using a Prince racket.

Anyway, she saw a battle royal.

She saw Pat Cash, the Australian who was lucky even to be invited to this 100th Wimbledon tournament, dispose of No. 2 seeded Mats Wilander of Sweden, 4-6, 7-5, 6-4, 6-3, on Centre Court. At least she saw most of it, leaving 15 minutes before the match ended, at tea time.

This is the same Pat Cash who:

--Two years ago, made the Wimbledon and U.S. Open singles semifinals at age 19.

--One year ago, made the Wimbledon doubles final, then pulled out of tennis with a bad back.

--And one month ago, had his appendix pulled out, then nearly pulled out of the tournament.

Cash had to be talked into staying by a friend. He had played only two matches in a year. He was ranked 413th in the world. He needed a wild-card invitation just to get in the door.

“I thought, ‘Why not have a go?’ The only thing I felt was that I was going to waste a perfectly good wild card that Wimbledon was generous enough to give me,” Cash said. “I was about one day away from chucking it in and going home.”

Instead, he has advanced to a quarterfinal match with Henri Leconte, and has cut such a dashing figure that he finally had to shout “Shut up!” to the young girls Monday who were squealing during his serve. If only they knew that Cash has been spending most of his spare time at Wimbledon changing his new baby’s nappies, which is Australian for diapers.

Cash’s match was the hot ticket Monday, but if the Princess of Wales had wandered around the grounds to check out other matches, she could have seen some pips.

She could have seen Chris Evert Lloyd fall behind, 5-1, in her first set with Kathy Jordan, only to zip through the next 10 games and put the King of Prussia, Pa., lass away in straight sets.

She also could have seen the emergence of unexpected quarterfinalists Miroslav Mecir and Ramesh Krishnan in the men’s division and Bettina Bunge and Lori McNeil in the women’s division. Not to mention the ever-popular Slobodan (Bobo) Zivojinovic.

And had she stuck around until it got too dark to continue, that old Trojan fan Lady Di could have seen Matt Anger from USC take the first set from the heavily favored Ivan Lendl in a tiebreaker, then take him to a tiebreaker in the second set before letting the Czech off the hook. The match is tied and so is the third set, 2-2, with play resuming today.

Anger and Tim Mayotte are the only American men left. Former Pepperdine star Brad Gilbert was eliminated by Mecir, the unseeded Czech, 3-6, 7-6, 6-1, 6-2, and Eddie Edwards, also out of Pepperdine, lost to Mayotte, 6-4, 6-2, 2-6, 6-2.

Even Mike Pernfors, the Swede who went to the University of Georgia, was knocked out, 6-3, 7-6, 6-2, by Boris Becker. A Georgia connection did cost Becker something, though. He showed up on court with too large a Coca-Cola logo on his warmup jacket and was fined $1,000.

Becker was far sorrier about how Sunday’s World Cup soccer tournament final with Argentina turned out, but, in one of the funnier lines of 20th Century history, said: “Germany can’t win them all.”

Men’s quarterfinal matches will pit Becker vs. Mecir, Cash vs. Leconte and Mutt vs. Jeff. When the 6-foot 6-inch, 200-pound Zivojinovic strides onto the court alongside the 5-7, 138-pound Krishnan, they are going to look like father and son. Picture Michael Jordan going one-on-one with Spud Webb.

On the women’s side, the best quarterfinal should involve No. 2 seeded Lloyd and No. 7 Helena Sukova. The worst one could be No. 3 Hana Mandlikova vs. the woman who has never won a pro singles title, McNeil, although the 22-year-old from Houston already has memories she can tell her grandchildren about, breezing through four rounds without losing a set.

Gaby Sabatini will try to keep Argentina’s win streak alive when she goes to the quarterfinals against Switzerland’s Catarina Lindqvist. As for favored Martina Navratilova, her next challenge will come from the resilient Bunge, who has blown the first set in three of her first four matches here. On Monday, Bunge upset Bulgaria’s Manuela Maleeva, 3-6, 6-2, 6-3.

The story of the tournament so far, though, is strictly Cash. In one week’s time he has improved his Assn. of Tennis Professionals world ranking from 413th to 103rd, the longest jump since they bought the computer. Cash was ranked seventh in July 1985, but slipped a disc and dropped out of sight.

Then, just when he thought it was safe to go back onto the grass, Cash and his girlfriend both felt pains in their stomach regions. She went to the hospital and delivered his baby. He went to the hospital a day later--sympathy pains?--and eventually delivered a beautiful, bouncing appendix.

“They took X-rays and thought it was a swollen gullet or something,” he said. “They gave me some ulcer pills and I went back home, and for about 12 hours I thought I was going to die.

“On Sunday it was OK, and then on Monday I went back to the doctor. The surgeon put me under and put a telescope down my throat to see if I had an ulcer. He said: ‘If we find something, do you want to wait through Wimbledon?’ And we talked about it, and he said I was likely to have another attack, and I’d have to be full of drugs and wouldn’t be able to train properly, so I just said, ‘Do it.’ ”

That was a month ago Monday.

Some people could not play tennis for a month if they had post-nasal drip. Here is someone whose body has been attacked front and back, who is three victories away from winning Wimbledon.

Cash wanted to go home. Charlie Fancutt, his friend and a former player, talked him out of it. So did his doctor, a former fencer who empathized with athletes’ uncertainties. “I’d better send him a ticket,” Cash said Monday.

The guy is going to do for appendectomies what Jim McMahon did for acupuncture. He moved beautifully against Wilander, scrambling for balls, finding his serve after struggling for the first set, winning the big points. And he covered the net splendidly.

“It felt like for me to pass him, he really had to go the wrong way,” Wilander said. “If he goes the right way, he gets every one. I think Cash can go all the way. I never thought he could play this well after his operation.”

Said Cash: “If you’d had a crystal ball and said I was going to beat Mats Wilander in the round of 16, I’d have thrown it in your face.”

When he served an ace on match point, Cash grabbed his headband--this really is Jim McMahon--and flung it to the screaming girls in the grandstand, none of whom was Princess Diana. He did not remove the diamond stud from his left ear and hurl that, but if he should beat Lendl for the championship, he might. British girls would take a Czech, but they prefer Cash.

The spectators got another souvenir Monday from Kathy Jordan, who kicked one ball and swatted another into the gallery in frustration at letting a big one, Lloyd, get away. Ahead, 5-1, Jordan squandered five set points. The next 10 games went to Lloyd.

“When she hit the ball into the stands, I sensed that she felt it was slipping away,” said Lloyd, who was upset by Jordan here in 1983. “The way she played the first six games, I don’t know how she could have kept it up. If she could have, she would have deserved to win the match and would have had a good chance to win the tournament.”

Which probably would have made her Queen of Prussia, Pa.

Wimbledon Notes After Matt Anger won the first set from Ivan Lendl, 7-6, he led the second, 6-5, before Lendl held service. Anger held a 2-1 advantage in their second tiebreaker, then failed to put away an easy forehand volley and proceeded to lose the next six points. The third set was suspended by darkness after four games. . . . Mike Pernfors said he had his concentration broken during his loss to Boris Becker when an umpire issued him a warning for abusive language. Pernfors swore he never swore. “I didn’t use any bad language, in English or Swedish,” he said. “If he’s going to be offended by something I said, he should be confident I said it.” . . . Four of the remaining 17 players are Czechs, five counting Martina Navratilova.