L.A. Tennis Tournament : Rostagno Victim of First Upset : 7th-Seeded Player Loses as Wild Cards Have a Field Day

Monday was a good day for wild cards but a bad day for Derrick Rostagno, a part-time drummer and full-time tennis player who beat a hasty retreat to the sidelines at the Volvo/Los Angeles tournament.

“I’m going to go home, get the drums and maybe beat out some of my frustrations,” Rostagno said after his first-round loss to Jeff Tarango.

Tarango, 19, ranked 161st in the world, and Pete Sampras, 17, ranked 190th, both wild-card entries in the 32-player field, won their matches on a cool, gray opening day at the Los Angeles Tennis Center.

Robbie Weiss, the other wild card, pushed sixth-seeded Dan Goldie to 3 sets before losing, 1-6, 7-6, 7-5.

Goldie trailed in the third set, 1-4 and 0-40, before he came back.

“There was a while there I didn’t think I had a chance to win,” Goldie said. “I got pretty lucky there.”

Seventh-seeded Rostagno, 22, became the first seeded player to go, losing, 6-3, 6-4, to Tarango, his former practice partner. Tarango, a junior at Stanford, is playing singles in only his seventh pro tournament.

Tarango, who grew up in Manhattan Beach, and Rostagno, who is from Brentwood, used to practice together frequently. Tarango had never beaten Rostagno until Monday, however, so he felt pretty good about it.

“To win this puts me up to a different level,” said Tarango, who said he is resisting the temptation to leave Stanford and turn pro.

“Not that I couldn’t come out on the pro tour and do really, really well,” he said.

Rostagno felt really, really bad about losing in straight sets to someone ranked so much lower. At the U.S. Open, Rostagno made it to the quarterfinals before he lost to Ivan Lendl, and he moved up to 36th in the rankings.

Rostagno’s good feelings about that were short-lived. He had a funny feeling when he played Tarango.

“I just felt absolutely not here,” he said. “I had absolutely no feeling out there. I was trying to find the center of the court. I was just aiming for the middle.”

He didn’t find it often. Down, 3-2, in the second set after having lost the first, Rostagno had a chance to come back, but he squandered three break points.

“It was just a joke,” he said.

Mark Woodforde, the 8th-seeded player, defeated qualifier Robert Van’t Hof of Newport Beach, 7-6, 6-1. A red-haired, left-handed Australian, Woodforde patterns his style after . . . Manuel Orantes?

“Yeah, topspin forehand, backhand slice,” Woodforde said. “You’re thinking Rod Laver. I never saw him play, but I hit with him.”

Woodforde, who defeated John McEnroe twice in a month--at Toronto and the U.S. Open--said he had been wary of playing McEnroe at the Open.

“I knew for sure he’d be trying to kick my butt that time around,” Woodforde said. “The guy’s a legend.”

Woodforde could meet McEnroe again in a semifinal match.

“I was just hoping I wouldn’t play him in an early round,” Woodforde said.

Sampras, who lives in Rancho Palos Verdes, moved into the second round with a 3-6, 6-3, 6-3 victory over qualifier Peter Doohan of Australia. Sampras will play the winner of the match between Peter Lundgren and David Pate, the defending champion.

Tennis Notes

How about this wild-card doubles team: John McEnroe and Mark Woodforde? It’s true. They play Kevin Curren and David Pate today. As for Patrick McEnroe, he’s teaming with Paul Annacone in doubles. . . . Day-Glo has hit tennis. Light and very bright colorful accessories are hot items now. Some players have already had their rackets strung with hot-colored gut, but there’s more. Jeff Tarango’s had a translucent pinkish-orange grip. Mark Woodforde played his match with fluorescent pink shoestrings. Pink? “Yes, a bit pinkish, aren’t they?” he said. For what it’s worth, Tarango and Woodforde won their matches. . . . It’s teen night tonight: Michael Chang, 16, plays qualifier Marcel Freeman in the first match at Stadium Court. After that, No. 1-seeded Andre Agassi, 18, plays Christian Saceanu of West Germany.