$15,000 for two losses JONATHAN CLAYTON

Press, 9 January 1987, Page 17

$15,000 for two losses

JONATHAN

CLAYTON

By

NZPA-Reuter Antwerp It must have seemed like a trip Into the realms of fantasy for some of the unheralded players who came to the tennis bonanza at Antwerp. A Swiss hopeful Claudio Mezzadrl lost both his matches — and received $15,000. The European Community Championships (E.C.C.) was a diamond and gold extravaganza of a tournament at which the normally unsung players of the international circuit reaped handsome rewards.

Mezzadrl, aged 21, was a beaten qualifier but received a "lucky loser" entry when another player dropped out through illness, and true to form, he lost again.

"I have never won so much money before In a week," said the Austrian, Thomas Muster, aged 19, who pocketed $47,500 for reaching the quarter-finals before John McEnroe showed him how tennis was really played. Even by the glittering standards of this immensely

wealthy port city — the centre of the world’s polished diamond trade — the total 940,000 dollars to be shared among 24 players seemed excessive. McEnroe won the tournament, collected $210,000 and staked a claim to a diamondstudded gold racket worth around one million dollars. Under the E.C.C. rules, any player who wins the trophy three times In five years is allowed to keep it. In 1985, the world No. 1, Ivan Lendl, achieved the feat. His racket still sits In a city bank safe awaiting collection. Lendl missed the 1986 event with a hip injury, while the Wimbledon champion Boris Becker was also absent and the leading Swedes opted for the concurrent Stockholm Open. Nothing seems to stop this five-year-old tournament, set up to commemorate the 25-year-old Treaty of Rome which founded the European Community, going from strength to strength. The tournament organisers Insist that even without many of the big names the event Is a success.