Tennis : Highlights of ‘88: Wilander, Agassi, Men’s Threat to Run Tour

As 1988 draws to a close for men’s professional tennis, three major developments must be considered from a spellbinding, unusual and confounding year:

--Mats Wilander, winner of 3 of the 4 Grand Slams, proved that nice guys sometimes finish first.

--Andre Agassi, a baby-faced extrovert, raised playing to the crowd to new heights--often to the consternation of his opponents--with his carefree 1-man shows. His tennis improved significantly, too, and his ranking zoomed from No. 25 to No. 3.

--Organizationally, men’s tennis took off in the direction of a lot of trouble.

It was sort of a grueling season that ended with the Assn. of Tennis Professionals, the players’ group, showing no signs of backing off its avowed intention of breaking away from the Men’s Tennis Council and running its own tour in 1990. The MTC has ruled men’s tennis since the early ‘70s.

One of the features of the ATP tour would enable players to take a 2-month break between the Masters and the year’s first big event, the Australian Open, without losing computer points.

Other ’88 highlights:

--Sweden’s Stefan Edberg winning at Wimbledon.

--Czech Miloslav Mecir, who returned to tennis at Wimbledon after a long lay-off because of a back injury, playing in a corset and winning the sport’s first Olympic gold medal in 64 years.

--Becker taking a valiant Ivan Lendl to 5 sets before winning his first Masters in a match that lasted 4 hours 43 minutes.

--West Germany, led by Becker, producing the shock of the year by humiliating Sweden on a Goteborg clay court to claim the Davis Cup for the first time.

--John McEnroe launching another comeback in April. McEnroe, who will be 30 in February, set out on the road back to the top by scoring an impressive victory in Tokyo and winning again in Detroit.

The 1988 season, however, clearly belonged to Wilander, despite disappointing and unexpected defeats in the Masters and in the Davis Cup Final.

Wilander, 24, finally got out from behind the long shadow cast by fellow Swede Bjorn Borg. Wilander, who won the French Open as a 17-year-old back in 1982, took over as the world’s No. 1 player when he beat Lendl in the U.S. Open final, 6-4, 4-6, 6-3, 5-7, 6-4.

That U.S. Open victory made Wilander the first player in 14 years to hold three Grand Slam titles at once. Jimmy Connors reigned as Australian, Wimbledon and United States Open champion in ’74.

In Australia, Wilander came back after trailing, 2-1, to beat Pat Cash in another 5-set match. In the French Open final at Paris’ Roland Garros, Wilander defeated Henri Leconte in straight sets.

Wimbledon was the only Grand Slam event at which Wilander stumbled. Mecir, the tall Czech, defeated Wilander in the quarterfinals.

Yes, U.S. Davis Cup Coach Tom Gorman was interested to see that Rick Leach and Jim Pugh won the Masters doubles in London, thereby finishing the year as the top doubles team on the Grand Prix tour.

No, Gorman isn’t dumping Ken Flach and Robert Seguso to make room for them on the Davis Cup team.

Actually, Gorman hasn’t made a decision yet and probably won’t until he has to, which is just 10 days before the first-round match with Paraguay, Feb. 3-5, at Ft. Meyers, Fla. But he made no secret about which way he is leaning.

“As of now, Flach and Seguso are still our team, but that’s not taking anything away from Jim and Rick, who have had a great year,” Gorman said. “You’ve got to count on (Davis Cup) experience, though.”

In that category, Flach and Seguso haven’t been beaten. Seguso is 7-0 and Flach 8-0. The one match Seguso missed, Paul Annacone stepped in and teamed with Flach to beat Pat Cash and John Fitzgerald in a 5-set thriller in Australia in 1986.

“Sure, the main thing is experience,” Gorman said. “For Rick and Jim, it may not be their year. Maybe not. But they’re not far away, are they?”

Leach and Pugh won 6 Grand Prix doubles titles and the Masters, defeating U.S. Open champions Sergio Casal and Emilio Sanchez, whom Leach and Pugh were scheduled to play in the U.S. Open final before having to default when Leach got sick.

Flach and Seguso had a tough time at the Masters. The Wimbledon champions lost fifth-set tiebreakers back to back and were eliminated. They finished the year second to Leach and Pugh in the Grand Prix doubles standings.

Money Talks Dept.: Reporters at the Davis Cup final in Goteborg, Sweden, were surprised to hear Boris Becker reply to questions at news conferences in little more than monosyllables.

Then they learned why: Becker had signed a $100,000 contract to tell his story to a West German newspaper.

Speaking of money, Marshall Happer, administrator of the MTC, warned the ATP last week that its proposed 1990 tour will prove to be a costly venture.

Happer predicted that the ATP’s tour would operate in the red, according to the ATP’s own estimated administrative costs, which seem to exceed those of the Council’s existing Grand Prix tour. However, Happer’s plea to meet ATP representatives in Australia in January to reach a compromise has apparently fallen on deaf ears as being too late.

But ATP spokesman Brad Harris said the players had decided to go ahead no matter the cost.

“The players are willing to make sacrifices to do that,” he told the French press agency. “If it means foregoing revenues initially, they are willing to do that.”

According to Harris, Philippe Chatrier, president of the International Tennis Federation, gave his support last Sunday to the new ATP tour.

“At this point, Marshall Happer seems to be fighting alone,” Harris said. “The tournament directors have endorsed the ATP tour. The president of the ITF has endorsed it. The players have endorsed it.”

No matter how thin people sometimes think American tennis talent has become,it’s a whole lot worse in Great Britain.

The British Lawn Tennis Assn. laments that Britain does not have a player in the men’s top 100 in the world.

Among the women, Sara Gomer is just inside the top 50, but she is there alone among her countrywomen.