Masters Tennis Tournament : Edberg Ousts Wilander; Hlasek Eliminates Agassi

On a busy Saturday at the Nabisco Masters tennis tournament, Mats Wilander said goodby with a straight-set loss to Stefan Edberg and then announced that he may not say hello to the Davis Cup.

Wilander, the world’s No. 1 player, was eliminated from the $750,000 tournament, but he left in pretty good company, along with No. 3-ranked Andre Agassi.

On his way out of Madison Square Garden, Wilander had a parting shot.

He said he is seriously considering sitting out Sweden’s Dec. 12 Davis Cup final against West Germany at Goteborg, Sweden, to protest Swedish television’s planned boycott of Boris Becker.

Swedish television is not planning to broadcast the Davis Cup final because Becker played in a junior tournament in South Africa in 1984.

Wilander, whose wife, Sonya, was born in South Africa, has not made a decision on whether to boycott the event.

“I’m seriously considering it,” he said. “I just haven’t made up my mind if it’s the right thing to do or not. I have to . . . wait for a few more facts, decisions from the TV people.”

Meanwhile, the Masters continued without him, but also without Agassi, who became Jakob Hlasek’s latest victim.

Agassi lost quickly (65 minutes) and completely, 6-3, 6-2, as the Hlasek bandwagon rolled over another victim.

Hlasek, the Czech-born Swiss, kept hitting low shots, and Agassi found himself uncommitted to digging them out. Agassi preferred to try for winners and did not find enough of them.

“He was unpatient,” Hlasek said.

“You’ve got to work, and I wasn’t willing to,” Agassi said.

Just this week, Hlasek has defeated top-10 players Ivan Lendl, Tim Mayotte and Agassi. Just this year, Hlasek has jumped from 23rd to 8th, turning the rankings into Jakob’s ladder.

Hlasek finished the 3-match round-robin as the only undefeated player and will meet Becker in a semifinal today. Edberg plays Lendl in the other semifinal.

Lendl scored a 6-2, 3-6, 6-3, victory over Mayotte, who is 0-13 against Lendl.

Mayotte’s only chance to emerge from the round robin and make the semifinals instead of Lendl was with a straight-set victory. Lendl, however, won the first set and immediately went into a funk.

“I had a little bit of a letdown because I knew I was in,” Lendl said.

There won’t be any secrets in his match against Edberg, said Lendl, who expects his opponent to serve and volley as usual.

“If I return well and put a lot of balls in play and make some passing shots, I’ll be all right,” Lendl said. “But if I don’t return, like Mats today, then there’s no reason to show up.”

Agassi was resigned in his defeat, which ended a wildly successful year in which he improved his ranking from No. 25 to No. 3.

“That’s why I’m not complaining,” he said. “That’s why I’m not disappointed. I had a great year. I didn’t go out with a bang, but I’m not going to complain about it.”

Wilander also went out without a bang, losing 6-2, 6-2. His exit was remarkable, not because of the fact that it happened, but because of its manner. Edberg, who baffled Wilander with his tactics, didn’t exactly throw Wilander a curveball, but something more like a changeup.

Edberg served 11 aces in a surprising performance, but he also took something off his groundstrokes and Wilander was never able to adjust.

“I realized in the beginning he was going to give me a lot of balls with no speed, so that I had to do everything. I’m not really used to that. I’m used to people attacking. Then he started serving well, and I wasn’t sure how I was going to play him.”

Wilander wound up not playing him very well at all. At 0-2 and 40-0 in the first set, Wilander seemed to lose it all at once and eventually lost what turned out to be a 22-point game.

Edberg, who broke Wilander 3 times in the first set, went up a break in the second set in the fifth game then broke him again to go up 5-2.

Edberg served out the match with three aces, including one on match point.

“I was serving the best I had since Wimbledon,” Edberg said.

Wilander had beaten Edberg 10 of the 15 times they had met, including twice this year--the Australian Open semifinals and the final of the ATP Championship in August.

In Cincinnati at the ATP championships, Edberg was up a break in the third set and lost, so he decided the time had come to play Wilander differently.

“You’ve got to do it sometime,” Edberg said. “I think you have to when you play Mats because he’s beaten me the last two times. Maybe he shouldn’t have beaten me in Cincinnati, but he did.”