Nastase brilliant in ousting Tanner

Press, 5 July 1978, Page 40

Nastase brilliant in ousting Tanner

NZPA-Reuter London Hie Nastase, of Rumania, the ninth seed, adorned the Wimbledon tennis championships with a glittering performance yesterday when he beat the sixth-seeded American. Roscoe Tanner, 2-6, 6-4, 6-2, 6-3, to reach the men’s quarter-finals. Even a bad-tempered incident right at the end — with Nastase, for once, not' the protaganist — failed to detract from an outstanding! occasion. It was Tanner,] who stormed off the famous centre court after disputing] a double fault which ended; the two-hour match. The over-riding memory was of Nastase defying a swirling wind to stage a brilliant recovery. deftly drawing the sting from Tanner's bludgeoning game. Now Nastase is through to the last eight together with Sweden’s defending champion Bjorn Borg, four Americans. Jimmy Connors, Vitas Gerulaitis, Brian Gottfried and Sandy Mayer, Mexico’s Raul Ramirez and Tom Okker, of 'he Netherlands. Okker, the only unseeded quarter-finalist, is Nastase’s next opponent while the other pairings have the topseeded Borg against Mayer, the eighth seed, Gerulaitis, seeded third, against the fifth-seeded Gottfried and Connors, the second seed, against Ramirez, the seventh seed. The top five seeds in the women’s singles, headed by the American, Chris Evert, are all through to the quar-ter-finals, but there were

upset defeats for the sixth, seventh and eighth seeds — Betty Stove (the Netherlands) and two Australians, Wendy Turnbull and Dianne Fromholt'z. Virginia Ruzici, of Rumania. who won the French title in Paris last month, beat Stove, last year's run-ner-up. 5-7, 6-4, 6-3, while another East European claycourt specialist, Yugoslavia’s [Mima Jausovec, accounted for Turnbull. 8-6. 6-4, 6-3. Fromholtz lost to eleventh seeded South African. Ma(rise Kruger. 4-6, 6-4. 6-3. Borg, who admits the I pressure of trying to win his i third successive Wimbledon men’s title is making him nervous, gave another patchy performance in beating the unseeded Australian. Geoff Masters. The 22-year-old Swede won, 6-2, 6-4, 8-6, but his success owed more to a dispirited start by Masters than any conviction on his own part. While Borg’s performance raised questions about his ability 7 to retain the title, Connors’s challenge continued to gather momentum. He swept into the last eight

by hammering the big Australian. John Alexander, 6-2, 6-2, 6-4, in 85min. Connors, desperately keen to regain the title he won in 1974, played with a zest and belligerence that expelled all doubt about his fitness following a blood disorder that at one time threatened to keep him away from Wimbledon this year. Ramirez, Connors’s next opponent, ended the Australian John Newcombe’s last assault on the Wimbledon’s

(men’s title with a conivincing 6-2, 9-8. 6-3 victory. The elegant Mexican is the only quarter-finalist who has yet to drop a set. The quarter-final line-up in the women's singles has Evert against her veteran compatriot, Billy Jean King, Britain’s defending champion, Virginia Wade against Jausovec, Australian’s Evonne Cawley against Ruzici, and the American-based Martina Navratilova against Kruger. Cawley, seeded third, is the only women's quarterfinalist who has won all her matches in straight sets but it is Navratilova who has stood out in the early rounds. In her fourth-round match yesterday Navratilova mercilessly exposed the youth and inexperience of the 15-year-old Californian. Tracy Austin, in winning 6-2, 6-3. The defending men’s doubles champions, Ross Case and Geoff Masters, of Australia, were knocked out ■in their second-round match by the Sydney pair. Mark Edmondson and John Marks. The match, which spanned tw’o days, was halted by poor light on Sunday with Edmondson and Marks leading, 9-8, 6-3, 7-9. Yesterday the Queenslanders took the fourth set, 9-8, on a tiebreaker after Case had failed to hold his service at 5-4 earlier. The final set was all one way. Case dropped his service in the third game and Masters dropped his in the fifth. The final score was 9-8, 6-3, 7-9, 8-9, 6-2.