Pam Shriver Easily Wins Opening Game in New South Wales

Defending champion Pam Shriver, returning after a five-week break, easily won her opening match of the $350,000 New South Wales Open tennis championships at White City today.

But Henri Leconte of France, top seed in the men’s field, was upset in his first-round match on the second day of the weeklong tournament.

The event is serving as a preliminary to the Australian Open starting in Melbourne on Jan. 16.

Shriver, seeded second behind Martina Navratilova, scored a 6-1, 6-4 victory over Australian teen-ager Jo-Anne Faull.

The victory advanced the American into the third round of the 56-draw Virginia Slims women’s event, being staged in conjunction with a 32-draw Nabisco Grand Prix men’s event.

The top eight women’s seeds have byes through the first round.

Leconte, ranked ninth in the world, also was returning after a rest but found the heat-wave conditions and Sweden’s Peter Lundgren too much, losing 6-4, 6-3 in a first-round match.

‘I Couldn’t Move’

Leconte, winner here in 1985, blamed a lack of match play and the hot weather for his loss. He had not played since the Nabisco Masters in New York early last month.

‘It always takes me a while to get going. It was very hot out there today and I couldn’t move,” Leconte said.

Lundgren, ranked 66th in the world, counts Pat Cash, Mats Wilander and Ivan Lendl among his victims.