Wimbledon : Chang Opens With a Bang and Lendl Escapes Upset

Wimbledon had its opening day at the All England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club, so to mark the occasion, Michael Chang played tennis and Ivan Lendl played croquet.

Lendl’s racket seemed more like a mallet Monday as he chased an elusive first-round victory that went scooting across the grass court as if it were a hard little croquet ball bouncing off wickets.

It finally bounced in the right direction for Lendl, who needed more than three hours to beat Nicolas Pereira of Venezuela, 7-6 (7-4), 4-6, 6-3, 6-7 (7-5), 6-1.

“I expected a difficult match,” Lendl said.

At least he wasn’t disappointed, then.

Neither was Chang, whose game had spoken so eloquently in the French Open on clay. It also produced an impressive performance on grass in a 6-4, 6-3, 2-6, 6-3, victory over Bill Scanlon of Dallas.

“I don’t think people expect me to do very well here,” Chang, 17, said.

Said Scanlon, 33: “The jury is still out on him. Only because he’s only been around for a year. Sure, he’s a good player, but everybody wants to see what happens.”

All but one of the highly seeded men who played Monday won.

Besides the top-seeded Lendl, second-seeded Stefan Edberg of Sweden defeated Chris Pridham of Canada, 6-3, 6-4, 6-1; third-seeded Boris Becker of West Germany defeated Bryan Shelton of Huntsville, Ala., 6-1, 6-4, 7-6 (7-2), and fourth-seeded Mats Wilander of Sweden defeated countryman Magnus Gustafsson, 6-2, 6-2, 6-2.

Jakob Hlasek, the sixth-seeded Swiss, was upset by Thomas Hogstedt of Sweden, 6-3, 7-6 (7-5), 6-1.

There was one other upset: A security guard didn’t recognize Becker and refused to let him enter the grounds without a pass.

Becker was eventually allowed in, but only escorted by a security guard.

The experience didn’t jar Becker’s sense of humor. Told that bookmakers were giving 11-8 odds on his winning the tournament, Becker said he would not bet on himself.

Why not?

“You won’t win very much,” Becker said.

Edberg scored his victory against his practice partner of last week. He had made plans with Pridham before the draw to hit some balls on the grass courts. They went ahead with the practice even after the draw.

“It was kind of awkward,” Edberg said.

It took Edberg six minutes to get a break point and only 89 minutes to complete the victory. The reigning Wimbledon champion said he decided to put his loss to Chang in the French Open final behind him.

“It was just a matter of only one or two points in the fourth set,” Edberg said. “I sort of had it in my pocket. I decided to forget as much as I could about it.”

Pridham said that losing to Edberg wasn’t nearly as bad as losing to Becker in the Australian Open.

“That was just a nightmare,” Pridham said. “Against Stefan, I didn’t look at it as playing the defending Wimbledon champion, I looked at it as just another match.”

For Jimmy Connors, his, too, was just another first-round Wimbledon match. He started his 18th consecutive Wimbledon with a 6-3, 6-2, 4-6, 6-3 victory over Andrei Cherkasov of the Soviet Union on Centre Court. He scored his first victory in 1972 over Bob Hewitt. But Connors will be 37 in September and his postmatch news conference eventually turned to his future.

Question: Will you be back next year?

Answer: Is it all right if I play this year first? You want me to leave and just come back next year?

Q: No, I mean, you’re not thinking about it?

A: I’m not thinking about tomorrow right now.

Meanwhile, Becker is thinking a lot about tomorrow, but certainly not beyond. A two-time Wimbledon champion before his 19th birthday, Becker was pleased to put Shelton away in the minimum number of sets.

But as for winning Wimbledon at 21, Becker said he preferred not to dwell on that.

“Since I’ve won it twice already, I know how it feels . . . how good it feels,” he said. “Actually, I’m not looking at (winning) at the moment. It is still a long way to go. It’s too far away, the final.”

The final sure looked far away for Lendl, who was extended to the limit by Pereira, the 1988 Wimbledon junior champion.

Lendl was up a set and a break in the fourth set against Pereira, a power-serving 18-year-old.

“I just pushed a little too hard,” Lendl said.

Forced to a fifth set, Lendl came up with a plan.

“I just said to myself, if you don’t lose your serve, you won’t lose the match.”

He did neither. However, he did play 3 hours 14 minutes and a five-set, first-round match isn’t the best way to begin a grueling two-week Grand Slam tournament. Lendl seemed annoyed when asked about being extended to five sets.

“Make whatever you want of it,” he said. “It’s good because I got in some work, but it’s bad because I’m tired.”

Becker voiced the prevailing opinion, that it’s much better to get a first-round match over as soon as possible. The sequence is serve and volley and head for the flat.

There were gusts of wind swirling around Centre Court, and Becker said it’s nice to win in a breeze.

“It’s definitely better than having to stay five sets out there and struggling to win,” he said.

Chang struggled only briefly. Scanlon, known chiefly as John McEnroe’s tormentor, has been in semi-retirement for the last two years.

He became inspired in the third set and early in the fourth, at which time he held a 3-1 lead. Scanlon held a break point to go up 4-1, but Chang saved the point and won the next five games to close out the match with a flourish.

“For a while there, I opened up a bottle of 1983 tennis,” Scanlon said.

Chang, though, soon provided the cork. After his stirring and unexpected victory in Paris, Chang said he felt Wimbledon pressure and no pressure at the same time.

“I think there’s a bit of pressure coming here, but then there’s not that much pressure because last year I lost in the second round,” he said. “I’ve gotten that far already.”

Tennis Notes

Monica Seles, the 15-year-old Florida-based Yugoslav who reached the French Open semifinals, won her first grass-court match. She defeated Brenda Schultz of the Netherlands, 7-6 (7-3), 1-6, 6-4. Seles’ only previous experience on grass consisted of 11 days of practice in the last two weeks. In the third set, Schultz served three--of 15 total--aces in succession to go up 4-2 and held a break point for 5-2. But Seles saved it with a backhand winner and eventually won the game. Seles saved two more break points at 4-4 and won nine of the last 10 points in the match. Her impressions of Wimbledon? “Huge grounds and a lot of green tennis courts,” she said.

Michael Chang said that other than attention from the media and the public, his life hasn’t really changed since he won the French Open. “Maybe a little richer,” he said. . . . Steffi Graf, Martina Navratilova, Gabriela Sabatini and Chris Evert play their first-round matches today. So does John McEnroe, who faces Darren Cahill of Australia.