Soviet Upsets Wilander; Chang Wins : Chesnokov’s Victory Sets Up Contest With American in Semi-Final Match

Andrei Chesnokov, pinning Mats Wilander back with deep ground strokes and passing him whenever he went to the net, swept the defending champion out of the French Open tennis championships 6-4, 6-0, 7-5 in the quarterfinals today.

Chesnokov, who beat Wilander in the third round in 1986 when the Swede also was defending champion, became the first Soviet player since Alex Metreveli at Wimbledon in 1973 to reach the last four of a Grand Slam tournament.

Michael Chang of Placentia, free of the cramps that wracked him against Ivan Lendl, continued his march through the championships, battling past Ronald Agenor of Haiti, 6-4, 2-6, 6-4, 7-6.

Wilander, who was seeded No. 4 and had not dropped a set in the French Open going into today’s match, could not master Chesnokov’s accurate base-line game and was drawn into errors.

As he lost most of the long rallies, Wilander tried to change tactics and move into the net. But that didn’t help either as the unseeded Soviet rifled winners past the startled Swede to complete a two-hour, 49-minute victory.

‘A Bit Lucky’

“This was a big surprise for me today,” Chesnokov, the world’s 27th-ranked player, said after reaching his first French Open semifinal.

“I had very good concentration and also patience, and I was also a bit lucky.”

In the semifinal, Chesnokov will meet No. 15 seed Chang.

The 17-year-old American, the youngest player ever to gain the last four in the men’s event at Roland Garros, today showed no sign of the pain that stiffened his legs in the previous round, when he upset Lendl in five sets.

But he needed to keep a cool head in a quarterfinal of swinging fortunes, a 50-minute rain delay and frequent moments of gamesmanship to shake off the challenge of the unseeded Agenor.

Time after time, Chang and Agenor broke each other’s serve--there were 20 breaks in the match--and the quality of tennis was poor as they struggled to find any rhythm or consistency .

There was a thrilling sequence of points at the end of the final set.

Clapping, Laughing

Adopting the same strategy he used successfully against Lendl, Chang crowded the service line as Agenor served. With the crowd clapping and laughing, the Haitian double faulted on break point and Chang served for the match at 5-4.

Agenor likewise stood directly behind the service line to try to ruffle his opponent at 30-all. Chang didn’t double fault, but he lost the point and was broken on the next point for 5-5.

Still neither player could hold serve.

Agenor saved two match points when Chang served at 6-5 then hit back from 3-5 to 6-5 in the tiebreaker but netted a backhand on his first and only set point.

Three points later, on his third match point, Chang brought a forehand error out of Agenor and the three-hour, 10-minute match was over.

Chang said Agenor was perfectly entitled to copy him by crowding the service line.

“It was a way of him saying, you do that to me and I’ll do that to you,” Chang said. “I tried to keep very calm, especially in the fourth set.”