Tennis Roundup : Svensson Earns a Shot at Wilander in Antwerp’s $923,000 Tournament

Jonas Svensson of Sweden, Sergio Casal of Spain and Henri Leconte of France won opening-round matches at Antwerp, Belgium, Tuesday in the $923,000 European Community Championship of Tennis.

Svensson beat Thierry Tulasne of France, 7-6, 7-5; Casal defeated Andrei Chesnokov of the Soviet Union, 6-3, 6-4, and Leconte eliminated Jimmy Arias, 4-6, 6-3, 6-2.

Tim Mayotte, Anders Jarryd of Sweden, Wojtek Fibak of Poland and Martin Jaite of Argentina won their first-round matches Monday.

Second-round matches will be held today and Thursday.

In second-round matches, Svensson meets Mats Wilander of Sweden, Casal takes on Pat Cash of Australia, and Leconte faces Ivan Lendl of Czechoslovakia.

Before losing to Lendl, 3-6, 6-3, 6-2, in an exhibition match before a crowd of 7,000 at Florence, Italy, John McEnroe told Milan’s daily Corriere della Sera that he lost the No. 1 spot in the world rankings “because I am an ordinary man, not a monster as some of my colleagues.”

“Lendl (the present No. 1 player), for instance, spends all of his time training and playing. I have many other interests in addition to tennis. I like staying with my family,” the 28-year-old American said.

Defending champion Steffi Graf breezed to a 6-0, 6-1 victory over fellow West German Claudia Porwik in the first round of a women’s indoor tournament at Zurich, Switzerland.

Other seeded players advancing were No. 4 Claudia Kohde-Kilsch of West Germany, who defeated Elna Reinach of South Africa, 6-4, 7-5; No. 5 Katerina Maleeva of Bulgaria, who beat Jana Novotna of Czechoslovakia, 6-1, 6-4, and No. 7 Raffaella Reggi of Italy, ousted Gisele Miro of Brazil, 6-2, 6-0.

Defending champion Peter Fleming overcame a 5-4 deficit in the first set and went on to beat Claudio Panatta of Italy, 7-6, 6-2, in the first round of a $75,000 indoor tournament at Bergen, Norway.

The fourth-seeded Fleming won the first-set tiebreaker, 7-0.

Jan Gunnarsson of Sweden and Milan Srejber of Czechoslovakia also won first-round matches. Gunnarsson, seeded No. 1, beat Morten Christensen of Denmark, 7-6, 6-4, and Srejber, seeded No. 2, defeated Brett Dickinson, 6-1, 7-6.

At Hong Kong, seventh-seeded Gary Muller of South Africa defeated Leonardo Lavelle of Mexico, 6-1, 1-6, 6-3, in the rain-shortened first round of the $200,000 Seiko Super Tennis tournament.

In other matches, Rick Leach breezed past Wolfgang Popp of West Germany, 6-2, 6-2, and Christian Saceanu of West Germany edged Andrew Castle of Britain, 6-2, 4-6, 7-5.