Australian Open Tennis Championships : Wilander Loses, and Lendl Tries for No. 1

After just 2 matches, Mats Wilander is 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, the result of a straight-set loss early Thursday evening to Ramesh Krishnan of India, sent the rest of the top men’s singles players elbowing each other to replace him as defending champion.

But Wilander, who lost to Krishnan, 6-3, 6-2, 7-6 (7-5), may keep his No. 1 ranking after all. There is only one player who can replace him: Ivan Lendl.

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

Lendl won his second-round match Friday morning, defeating Carl-Uwe Steeb, 6-2, 2-6, 6-0, 6-3.

On the women’s side, top-seeded Steffi Graf breezed through a 47-minute, 6-0, 6-1 victory over Marianne Werdel.

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

After being forced to go 5 sets before winning his first-round match, Wilander knew he was far from the top of his game.

“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 West German 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.”

Unexpected as Wilander’s defeat might have been, it was not the first time a defending champion or top-seeded player lost in the second round of a Grand Slam.

It last occurred in 1987, when top-seeded and defending champion Boris Becker lost in the second round at Wimbledon to Peter Doohan.

Krishnan said of Wilander: “This is probably the worst I’ve seen him play.”

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.

Other men’s singles winners in early matches Friday were Johan Kriek, Darren Cahill, Thomas Muster and Amos Mansdorf.

They advance to the third round with Becker and Miloslav Mecir, who won matches Thursday.

Helena Sukova and Hana Mandlikova won their matches Thursday, as did Martina Navratilova, who defeated Jenny Byrne, 6-4, 7-6. Pam Shriver moved to the third round with a difficult 1-6, 6-3, 6-4 victory over Sarah Loosemore.