Tennis: Chang shows true grit to take thriller

By TERRY MADDAFORD

Michael Chang stood and eventually delivered on the opening day of the Auckland international tennis tournament at Stanley St yesterday. But only after a battle royal with Byron Black.

In one of the best first-day matches in years, the former world No 2 won a tough three-set battle 7-5, 4-6, 7-6 (7-1) to give the almost sellout crowd and the Heineken Open organisers the start they wanted.

In his first match since last November's Stockholm Open - he failed to win or even make a final in 1999 - Chang showed touches of the class which has already won him 33 ATP Tour titles.

Down at times but never out, Chang produced some of his trademark ground strokes and glimpses of his never-give-in, chase-everything-down attitude.

At the odd time when Black sensed he might have his ever-tenacious opponent in trouble, Chang would send down a screaming two-handed backhand shot or whip a cross-court volley away from the despairing Black racket.

Black lacked little in comparison with his illustrious rival who dragged in the biggest opening day crowd in years.

Not unlike his sister Cara, who won one and lost one title in last week's women's international on the same court, Black's no-frills, honest approach won him plenty of support from a generally pro-Chang crowd.

Black took first blood when he broke Chang in the fifth game, only to hand that advantage straight back. Games went with service until the 12th game when Chang fired in a couple of winners to break Black and take the set 7-5.

There was only one break in the second set with Black taking the third game for 2-1. The Zimbabwean No 1 eventually took it 6-4 but only after Chang had made him scrap for every point in the fourth and sixth games.

Chang had a real struggle in the first game of the third set - taken to deuce four times - but then broke Black to love in the next for 2-0, held serve for 3-0. Surely, it was all over.

But Black was not done with. He broke Chang to love for 3-4, held for 4-4 and eventually took it to the tiebreaker.

That effort obviously told. Chang dropped just the fifth point in taking it 7-1 to book a second-round clash tomorrow with the winner of today's first-up game between fourth seed Nicolas Escude and qualifier Michael Sell.

Earlier, New Zealand's singles' hopes ended when a brave Mark Nielsen went down 6-4 6-4to a former champion, Swede Magnu Gustafsson.

Nielsen was broken once in the first set - in the ninth game - but had struggled to hold through the early games against a player ranked more than 200 places higher.

The second set was closer but Nielsen missed some vital chances.

Happy to get as close as he did? Nielsen replied simply: "A loss is a loss no matter what the score."

Fifth seed Thomas Johansson overcame a tentative start to beat qualifier Glenn Weiner 7-6 (7-5), 6-1.

In feature matches today, defending champion Sjeng Schalken plays Goran Ivanisevic and in the night session, top seed Tommy Haas meets Jeff Tarango.