Long journey wasted

Press, 11 May 1989, Page 30

Long journey wasted

NZPA-Reuter Hamburg A Russian tennis rebel, Andrei Chesnokov, who endured an overnight train journey to play in the West German Open, was defeated 6-4, 6-3 in the first round on Tuesday by Swede Jan Gunnarsson. Chesnokov has earned more than SUS6O,OOO in the past month after winning the Nice and Munich Opens. But Soviet restrictions on travelling expenses forced him to endure a seven-hour journey from Munich in a packed second-class compartmenton Sunday. “The journey was a nieht-

mare,” he said. “I woke up about 100 times and couldn’t sleep sitting down." The after-effects were apparent on Tuesday as Chesnokov lacked his usual sparkle and determination against the hard-hitting Swede, ranked No. 50 in the world, 22 places behind the thirteenth seeded Russian. Chesnokov has recently joined the top Soviet women’s player, Natalia Zvereva, in refusing to hand over prizemoney to the country’s sporting authorities. • The top challengers for Gabriela Sabatini’s Italian Open tennis crown sailed into

the third round without dropping a set between them yesterday although none looked supremely confident. Bulgarian Manuela Maleeva was the top seed in action and was unexpectedly kind to the Italian qualifier, Barbara Romano. Maleeva, who won in Indian Wells in March, allowed the Italian, ranked 152 places below her in the world at No. 161, to fight back from 4-0 down in the first set to level at 5-3. Maleeva, who like the other leading seeds had a first-round bye, went on to win 6-3, 6-2,