Australian Open Tennis Championships : Wilander’s Fall Gives Lendl Shot at No. 1

Mats Wilander may be gone from the Australian Open, but his No. 1 ranking may not be going anywhere.

Wilander’s sudden and shocking departure from the year’s first Grand Slam tournament, the result of a straight-set loss to Ramesh Krishnan Thursday, sent 2 of the top men’s players scrambling to place Wilander onto an analyst’s couch.

“He said he was not motivated, but I don’t understand,” Ivan Lendl said. “I never have had that problem in Grand Slam tournaments.”

Wilander, who lost to Krishnan, 6-3, 6-2, 7-6, may keep his No. 1 ranking after all. There is only one player who can replace him: Lendl.

Lendl can become No. 1 again in the near future, but only if he wins the Australian Open. That would give him enough points to move ahead of Wilander in the computer rankings.

“If I win here, I don’t care if I’m No. 50 or No. 1,” said the second-seeded Lendl, who won his second-round match Friday morning, defeating Carl-Uwe Steeb of West Germany, 6-2, 2-6, 6-0, 6-3.

John McEnroe, seeded No. 7, battled sun, wind, concentration problems and a verbal battle with a sideline judge, for which he received a warning.

Along the way, McEnroe managed to defeat Brod Dyke of Australia, 6-2, 4-6, 6-4, 6-3.

McEnroe said he was angry for letting himself become distracted by a few line calls. On the changeover at 4-3 in the third set, the linesman complained to the umpire, who issued McEnroe a warning.

“It was unfortunate,” McEnroe said. “I felt like I should have kept myself under better control. That’s a match I should have won in straight sets, but the main thing is just winning now.”

That was something Wilander was unable to do. McEnroe said it is difficult assessing Wilander’s psyche. McEnroe suggested it might be good for Wilander to take a break from tennis.

“It’s not in anybody’s best interests for him to go out and feel bad,” he said.

Top-seeded Steffi Graf said she did not feel bad, only cold, in a breezy Friday afternoon match against Marianne Werdel. Graf powered her way to a 6-0, 6-1 victory that took just 47 minutes.

Gabriela Sabatini, seeded No. 3, pitched a 6-0, 6-0 shutout at Camille Benjamin.

Stefan Edberg, seeded No. 4, turned in another strong performance and won his second-round match Friday, defeating Heiner Moraing of West Germany, 6-4, 7-5, 7-5.

Wilander, who fought off 3 match points before finally losing to Krishnan, had a simple explanation for what went wrong: “I just played terrible.

“I guess I came into the match in a bad way,” he said. “I don’t know. To me, it’s just been difficult to motivate myself after the U. S. Open because that for me was such a big thing.”

Since his success at the Open, when he replaced Lendl as No. 1 in the world, Wilander has fallen upon hard times. He was an early loser in the Nabisco Masters and then was a shocking loser to Steeb in the Davis Cup final. Wilander lost in 5 sets after being up 2 sets and a break.

Now, after his latest disappointment, Wilander said he is going to consider taking a break from tennis. He said the last time he had such a concentration lapse, he tried something different.

“That was in 1986 and that was from playing bad,” he said. “This is from playing good, I guess. Then, I took time off and got married. I’m already married, so I can’t do that again.”