Soviet Tennis Star Feels ‘Hometown’ Pressure

MOSCOW —  It was no ordinary first-round match for Natalia Zvereva. The 18-year-old from Minsk carried the hopes and dreams of a tennis-starved nation.

“I can’t remember being as nervous for a first-round match,” Zvereva said today after beating compatriot Aida Khalatyan 6-3, 6-0 in the first professional tennis tournament in the Soviet Union.

“I badly want to win here. The pressure is intense.”

Prolonged applause from a sparse first-day crowd of about 1,000 greeted the entrance of Zvereva onto the court at Olympic Stadium.

Zvereva said she tried to treat it like any other match, but the occasion was too unusual.

“If I had been told three years ago that in 1989 a professional tournament would be staged here, I’d have been shocked,” Zvereva said. “It took me awhile to settle down. This was a wonderful feeling.”

Zvereva, last year’s French Open finalist and ranked 14th in the world, said many of the other top players on the women’s tour had expressed a desire to play here.

“Martina (Navratilova) and Gabriela (Sabatini) both wished me luck and told me how much they would love to come,” Zvereva said. “I’m sure this event can get even bigger. The public is hungry for tennis.”

Zvereva is in a dispute with the Soviet tennis federation over how much prize money she can keep. She declined to discuss the issue until the end of the tournament.

In another first-round match, Jo-Anne Faull, the No. 8 seed from Australia, was upset 6-1, 6-4 by Sabine Hack of West Germany.

Elsewhere today, Johan Anderson of Australia upset seventh-seeded American Richard Matuszewski 6-2, 6-2 in a first-round match of the Australian Indoor tennis championships at Sydney.