Wally Masur Advances in New South Wales Open

SYDNEY, Australia —  Wally Masur of Australia beat Javier Sanchez of Spain 2-6, 6-2, 7-6 (7-1) during today’s first-round match at the New South Wales Open tennis championships.

Rain, which delayed the Masur-Sanchez match four hours, caused several opening-round matches to be postponed until Tuesday.

Masur, ranked 37th in the world, earned a likely confrontation with reigning Wimbledon and U.S. Open champion Boris Becker. The West German, seeded second here behind world No. 1 Ivan Lendl, is to play his first match Tuesday against Soviet Alexander Volkov.

Lendl also makes his first appearance Tuesday, facing Canadian Andrew Sznajder.

When play was abandoned late Monday, France’s Yannick Noah, the eighth seed, led Ronald Agenor of Haiti 6-4, 2-1 in another first-round match. The Soviet Union’s Andrei Cherkasov, runner-up last year to American Aaron Krickstein, scored a 6-1, 4-6, 6-4 win over Czech Petr Korda.

In the women’s competition, ninth-seeded Gigi Fernandez, No. 10 Barbara Paulus of Austria and Americans Terry Phelps, Elise Burgin, Ann Grossman and Cammy MacGregor all advanced to the second round.

Fernandez proved too strong for 20-year-old American Halle Cioffi, winning 6-3, 6-1, while Paulus downed Carrie Cunningham of the United States 5-7, 6-1, 6-4.

In Auckland, New Zealand, meanwhile, Israeli Amos Mansdorf, taunted by demonstrators with black tennis balls for having played in South Africa last year, calmly defeated Karel Novacek of Czechoslovakia 6-4, 6-4 today in the first round of the Benson and Hedges Open tennis championship.

Defending champion Ramesh Krishnan of India beat sixth seed Paolo Cane of Italy 6-1, 6-1. No. 7 seed Paul Chamberlin of the United States fell 7-5, 6-3 to Grant Connell of Canada.

American Dan Goldie of the United States beat Lars Wahlgren of Sweden 7-6 (7-4), 6-0; third seed Magnus Gustafsson of Sweden eliminated Johan Anderson of Australia 6-1, 6-2; Jeremy Bates of Britain beat Jens Wohrmann of West Germany, 2-6, 6-1, 6-1, and Olivier Delaitre of France downed Paul Haarhuis of The Netherlands, 6-2, 6-3.

No. 1 seed Miloslav Mecir of Czechoslovakia and second-seeded Andrei Chesnokov of the Soviet Union are scheduled start play on Tuesday.