McEnroe Has Something to Talk About--a Win : In Comeback Match, He Beats Ostoja, 7-5, 6-3, Despite Feeling ‘Out of Sync’

STRATTON Vt. —  John McEnroe made a triumphant return to tennis Tuesday in what he called “a strangely mediocre match.”

Then the man the British tabloids have called “Mac the Mouth” held a 70-minute news conference. It was his first media appearance since his marriage last week to actress Tatum O’Neal, with whom he has a son.

“It did feel a little bit strange,” McEnroe said after playing his first tournament match since a loss in mid-January to Brad Gilbert in the Volvo Masters. “I never really got into a flow. But it felt good being out there.”

With his wife and parents watching, McEnroe ended his self-imposed sabbatical with a 7-5, 6-3 first-round victory over Marko Ostoja of Yugoslavia in the $315,000 Volvo International tournament.

Also posting first-round victories were top-seeded Ivan Lendl, No. 8 Paul Annacone, No. 9 Johan Kriek and No. 12 Robert Seguso.

But 10th-seeded Jimmy Arias and No. 11 Matt Anger were upset on the warm, sunny day on the hard courts nestled high in the Green Mountains.

“It’s going to take me some time to really play my best,” the left-handed McEnroe said. “I felt like I served pretty well. I just felt tentative on the ground strokes and was a little bit out of sync.

“I felt flat out there for some reason. I’m happy that I won. . . . I expect more out of myself, but if it doesn’t work out for a while, I’m just going to have to accept that.”

The strokes that have carried McEnroe to seven Grand Slam singles titles were in evidence, but the sharpness was missing. He seemed content to work his way to the net, where he could knock off winning volleys. Only occasionally did he attempt to hit outright winners, and those occasions came late in the match.

Ostoja, who lost in the qualifying but was inserted into the main draw when veteran Brian Teacher was forced to pull out of the tournament with a bad back, battled McEnroe evenly through the first eight games. Then, in the ninth game, he was the first to reach break point on McEnroe’s service.

But the New Yorker pulled to deuce with a service winner, took the ad point with his third ace of the match and closed out the game when Ostoja sailed a backhand service return long. The challenger would never again get that close to breaking McEnroe’s serve.

Firing his fourth and fifth aces of the match, McEnroe held serve at 15 to take a 6-5 lead. In the next game, Ostoja double-faulted to 30-40, giving McEnroe set point, and the four-time U.S. Open champion closed out the break when he ripped a backhand service return that Ostoja netted.

Another double-fault by the Yugoslav in the sixth game of the second set gave McEnroe break point again. And again, the world’s seventh-ranked player took advantage of the opportunity, this time closing out the service break with a blazing backhand cross-court passing shot.

When he closed out the next game with his seventh ace, McEnroe had a 5-2 lead and was cruising into a second-round matchup against his doubles partner, Peter Fleming.

Although Ostoja staved off one match point to hold serve, it only extended the match another five minutes as McEnroe closed it out by holding service at 15, including his eighth ace of the day.

“I was a little bit nervous,” McEnroe said. “I didn’t really ever seem to totally relax. I wasn’t ever into the match the way I would like, but hopefully, tomorrow I’ll be better off.”

Lendl defeated Israel’s Amos Mansdorf, 6-2, 7-5; Annacone stopped Australia’s Mark Edmondson, 5-7, 6-2, 6-4; Kriek downed McEnroe’s younger brother, Patrick, 6-2, 5-7, 6-4, and Seguso eliminated Tom Gullikson, 6-4, 6-2.

Arias lost to Todd Witsken, 6-3, 3-6, 7-6, while Mark Kratzmann of Australia upset Anger, 7-6, 6-3.