Manhattan Beach Tennis : Evert and Garrison Coast to Second-Round Victories

The 1988 U.S. Olympic women’s tennis team--including past and present members--wasn’t exactly having the best of luck this week at the Manhattan Country Club.

Pam Shriver? Dismissed in the second round by a 15-year-old amateur.

Elise Burgin? Dismissed by the U.S. Tennis Assn. last month, all the way off the Olympic team. And at Manhattan Beach, she went out the first day--courtesy of Susan Sloane--in the $300,000 Virginia Slims of Los Angeles.

So, it was up to Shriver’s teammates, Zina Garrison and Chris Evert, to rectify the situation, and so they did, with very little trouble at that. Garrison, the fifth-seeded player, defeated Monique Javer, 6-3, 6-1, Wednesday in the second round.

As for the No. 1-seeded Evert, the replacement for Burgin on the team (probably the first time Evert has been called a replacement), she trounced Eva Pfaff, 6-2, 6-2, in another second-round match.

This is Evert’s first tournament since her marriage last month to former Olympic skier Andy Mill, and Wednesday she held her first news conference since the Olympic controversy involving Evert, Burgin and the USTA.

“Unfortunately, Elise Burgin was a bit of the victim in this whole thing because the USTA told her that she was definitely selected on the team,” Evert said.

However, saying Burgin was a bit of a victim might be like saying the Wayne Gretzky deal was a bit of a trade.

Evert, while driving from the airport to Manhattan Beach, heard a radio reporter saying that there might be “bad blood” when she and Burgin saw each other at the tournament. That, she said, was dead wrong.

“It’s nothing between Elise and me,” Evert said.

She put the blame on the USTA. The governing body of United States tennis named the 1988 Olympic team in December 1987 and never said the initial nominations were provisional.

“The USTA were the ones that should have informed her that they had until July 31,” Evert said. “It’s their fault. It’s nobody else’s fault.”

Was she embarrassed by all this?

“No, I’m not embarrassed,” Evert said. “The USTA should be embarrassed, not me.”

Tennis Notes

In Wednesday’s second round, there were no surprises as all of the seeded players won their matches. No. 12 Gretchen Magers was the only one who needed three sets to advance, defeating Betsy Nagelsen, 6-3, 3-6, 6-2. Others advancing included No. 8 Stephanie Rehe, No. 9 Catarina Lindqvist, No. 10 Dianne Balestrat, No. 11 Robin White and No. 13 Halle Cioffi. . . . These are today’s featured matches, all in the round of 16: White vs. No. 6 Patty Fendick, Magers vs. Amy Frazier, No. 1 Chris Evert vs. Cioffi, No. 3 Gabriela Sabatini vs. No. 14 Sara Gomer.