Tennis Roundup : Navratilova Survives 2 Tiebreakers

No. 1-seeded Martina Navratilova struggled through two tiebreakers to beat Sabrina Goles of Yugoslavia, 7-6, 7-6, Tuesday in the second round of the $150,000 Italian Open women’s tennis tournament.

Meanwhile, No. 2-seeded Steffi Graf of West Germany breezed to a 6-2, 6-2 victory over Petra Huber of Austria in her debut on the slow red clay courts at Rome.

Navratilova, the world’s top-ranked player, is used to coasting through her early matches in little more than 30 minutes. But, Tuesday, in her first match at the Foro Italico since 1975, she needed 1 hour 45 minutes to pull out a victory over the 21-year-old Goles, ranked No. 49 in the world.

In the end, it was Navratilova’s strong serve that carried her through the tiebreakers, 7-4, 7-3.

“She (Goles) played well, but it was more a matter of me playing badly,” Navratilova said. “I’ve been practicing on clay for a month but the court was very soft and she was hitting the ball so low, with a lot of slice, and I was having difficulty.

“I was up and down,” she said. “I couldn’t string it together. I was tentative. I couldn’t figure out whether to stay back or come in.

“If I play like I played today. I won’t get to play Steffi in the finals.”

Goles, who was playing Navratilova for the first time, said she had expected a tougher match.

“I like clay,” she said. “I changed the pace a lot and she (Navratilova) didn’t like that. But in the tiebreakers, she just served better.”

Defending champion Yannick Noah of France defeated Jaime Yzaga of Peru, 7-5, 6-2, as the $615,000 Shearson Lehman Brothers Tournament of Champions opened in New York after a delay of 29 hours because of rain.

No. 3-seeded Tim Mayotte and No. 12 Slobodan Zivojinovich of Yugoslavia had matches halted by darkness after they had split the first two sets, Mayotte against Pavel Vojtisek of West Germanyand Zivojinovich against Mark Dickson.

Because of the backlog, half the field, including top-seeded Boris Becker, will have to play two matches today in an attempt to complete the second round.