Tennis Roundup : Chang Easily Beats Leach in First Match

Michael Chang, 15, who last year became the youngest player ever to win a match in the U.S. Open, won his first match as a professional tennis player Tuesday night in the $415,000 U.S. Indoor championships at Memphis, Tenn.

Chang, of Placentia, defeated veteran Rick Leach, 6-3, 6-2.

“For the first few minutes after I first got on the court I was more nervous than usual, for some reason,” Chang said. “I signed an autograph before the match, and it was one of the sloppiest I’ve ever signed.

“This first year (on the pro tour) I want to work on my game and improve, not worry about earnings and rankings,” he added.

Whether he is the future of U.S. tennis, a challenge with which some have already burdened him, is a question he said he can’t avoid. But he does not have an answer.

“I’m aware of that because every time I’m at a press conference somebody asks me about it,” Chang said. “The best thing is just to keep it in the back of my mind and not worry about it. That’s one of those things that only time will tell.”

Another rising U.S. star, sixth-seeded, 17-year-old Andre Agassi, also won his first-round match, defeating John Ross, 6-4, 6-4.

“I was very anxious,” Agassi said. “I hadn’t played a match in 2 1/2 months.”

Agassi, whose ranking has jumped to No. 18 in the world in only his second full year on the tour, said his game began to improve when “I stopped putting so much emphasis on winning and losing, and concentrated on improving instead.”

Unseeded Robert Seguso knocked off 13th-seeded Kelly Evernden of Australia in the second round, 6-3, 5-7, 7-6, in a match that lasted three hours and was twice delayed by power failures. Third-seeded David Pate had little trouble eliminating South African Gary Muller, 6-3, 6-2, fourth-seeded Eliot Teltscher beat Sammy Giammalva, 6-4, 6-4, and 15th-seeded Johan Kriek turned back Mel Purcell, 6-7, 6-1, 6-2.

Top-seeded Martina Navratilova settled down quickly after dropping the first two games of her first-round match and beat Stephanie Rehe, 6-3, 6-2, in the $250,000 Virginia Slims of California at Oakland.

“I was ahead 40-15 in the first game, then hit a bad volley and a bad forehand. I was upset, not because I lost the game but by how I lost it,” Navratilova said.

Navratilova lost a total of only four points in winning the last five games of the first set against Rehe.

Defending champion Zina Garrison, seeded fourth, opened play in the tournament with a strong serve and a strong showing, beating Heather Ludloff, 6-4, 6-2.

Making life difficult for himself with some sloppy and erratic play, Boris Becker survived a late lapse before defeating Guy Forget of France in the opening round of a Grand Prix tournament at Milan, Italy.

Becker, the defending champion, lagged 0-30 at 4-4 in the final set against Forget after losing six points in a row to the 23-year-old French left-hander. But he then won eight straight points, capped with an ace, to move into the second round of the $500,000 event, 6-4, 1-6, 6-4.

In earlier matches, fourth-seeded Pat Cash of Australia downed Niklas Kulti, a 16-year-old Swede, 6-3, 6-4.