Wimbledon Roundup : Shriver Needs 3 Sets to Pull Out First-Round Win Over Unseeded Van Rensburg

Pam Shriver barely avoided a repeat of 1986, when she was eliminated in the first round of the Wimbledon tennis championships on the grass courts where she usually plays so well.

The third-seeded Shriver trailed, 4-1, in the third set Tuesday, but outlasted unseeded Dinky van Rensburg of South Africa, 6-2, 4-6, 8-6, at the All England Lawn Tennis Club.

Shriver was one of the few top players to have trouble advancing. The only seeded player in either the men’s or women’s draw to lose was No. 14 Andrei Chesnokov of the Soviet Union, who was eliminated by Udo Riglewski of West Germany, 7-5, 6-4, 6-4.

Peter Doohan, who upset two-time champion Boris Becker in the second round last year, was defeated by Ken Flach, 7-5, 7-6, 6-3.

Meanwhile, Claudia Kohde-Kilsch, seeded 11th and a quarterfinalist last year, withdrew because of a knee injury. The West German, who was scheduled to play Iva Budarova of Czechoslovakia in a first-round match, injured her knee during a third-round match in last week’s tournament in Eastbourne.

Van Rensburg, ranked 81st in the world, had never won a set in her three previous matches against Shriver.

But the South African had a 15-30 lead on Shriver’s serve in the sixth game of the third set. Shriver held with an ace, broke Van Rensburg’s serve and held again to even the set. She got the final break of the match in the 13th game with the help of Van Rensburg’s double fault at deuce.

Van Rensburg had four double faults in the final five games she served.

“She was serving out of her brain, putting the ball an inch or two from the line,” Shriver said of Van Rensburg’s run. “I thought, ‘She can’t keep serving like this.’ And she didn’t.”

Van Rensburg played well in the second set, when she broke Shriver’s serve three times. Shriver wasted three break points in the ninth game, and Van Rensburg finished the set by converting her second break point in the 10th game.

Last week, Shriver withdrew from the Eastbourne grass-court tournament because of an injury, but she said that had nothing to do with her tough first-round progress.

“Nothing right now is simple,” she said. “I’m having to cope with it, but I’m not happy. But who knows why? Sometimes, things just aren’t smooth.”

The match was played on the same outside court where Shriver beat West Germany’s Sylvia Hanika, 6-7, 7-5, 10-8, to reach the quarterfinals last year. In the quarterfinals, Shriver beat Helena Sukova of Czechoslovakia, 4-6, 7-6, 10-8, before losing in the semifinals to Steffi Graf, 6-0, 6-2.

“The last three matches I’ve won at Wimbledon have ended in third sets of 10-8, 10-8 and 8-6,” Shriver said. “Maybe it’s just something I enjoy.”