Wilander Comeback Is Stalled

Mats Wilander’s comeback suffered a setback Thursday when he was beaten by Marcelo Filippini of Uruguay, 6-2, 3-6, 7-6 (7-4), in the second round of the $300,000 Swedish Open at Bastad.

Wilander, ranked No. 1 in the world before slipping and then taking a five-month break, made several unforced errors in losing the tiebreaker that decided the match.

Wilander said he was confident after holding his serve to get even, 5-5, in the third set, “when I gave everything in every rally.

“But I got awfully tired toward the end of the match. . . I missed a lot of easy shots. It was a combination of me being tired and very nervous.

“But this is what you can expect after such a long layoff.”

Wilander routed Johan Anderson of Australia, 6-0, 6-3, in the first round Tuesday. After that match, Wilander said he expected the next couple of months to be up and down.

“But give me 10 tough matches like this and I’ll be in top shape again,” he said. “But I can’t afford to lose too many matches. Then I could lose my interest in tennis.”

After reaching the semifinals of the Australian Open last January, he lost a first-round match at Indian Wells to fellow Swede Jan Gunnarsson a few weeks later, and then decided to take a break, saying he wasn’t motivated.

Wilander, ranked 29th on the ATP’s computer going into the tournament, will play tournaments in Stuttgart, West Germany, Cincinnati and New Haven, Conn., before the U.S. Open.

“The U.S. Open is my big goal this year,” said Wilander, who missed the last two Grand Slam tournaments, the French Open and Wimbledon.

Emilio Sanchez advanced to the quarterfinals of the $305,000 Swiss Open at Gstaad with a 6-3, 6-2 victory over fellow Spaniard Jordi Arrese.

Marc Rosset of Switzerland will face the second-seeded Sanchez in the quarterfinals after beating Australia’s Wally Masur, 6-4, 5-7, 7-6 (9-7).

In the day’s only major upset, Spain’s Juan Aguilera, the No. 6 seeded player, was beaten, 6-3, 6-4, by Sergi Bruguera, also of Spain.

Fourth-seeded Andre Chesnokov of the Soviet Union defeated Tomas Carbonell of Spain, 7-5, 6-3, and will meet Bruguera in the quarterfinals.

Jakob Hlasek of Switzerland upset second-seeded Jay Berger, 6-2, 6-1, in the first round of an international tournament at Osaka, Japan.

Hlasek, hitting five aces and making 66.8% of his first serves, needed only 67 minutes to eliminate Berger. Berger, the world’s 10th-ranked player, double-faulted six times and hit just over half of his first serves.

The 10th-ranked women’s player was also upset. Spain’s Conchita Martinez committed nine double faults in a 6-0, 6-4 loss to Ann Grossman.

Rain forced the cancellation of the fourth round of a $150,000 grass-court tournament at Newport, R.I.

All of the singles matches were rescheduled for today, which means that some players could end up playing as many as three matches, including doubles.