One Thing Missing in Masters Tennis : There Will Be No Americans in the Tournament This Year

NEW YORK â€”  When Gene Scott was presented a mandate to give the Nabisco Masters a freshly scrubbed look, not even he envisioned how revolutionary the new product would be.

The power structure of men’s tennis has undergone such a radical change that the closest similarities to an American in the $500,000 Nabisco Masters are Ivan Lendl and Yannick Noah. Lendl happens to live in Greenwich, Conn., and Noah now lives in New York.

John McEnroe, until a year ago the world’s top player, dropped out of tennis for seven months after being humiliated in the last Masters, which was played in January, and did not have sufficient time to earn enough points to qualify for this event. Jimmy Connors finished ninth on the Nabisco Grand Prix points standings and is the first alternate should someone drop out.

“I’m a grownup and the real world is that no American is good enough right now,� said Scott, tournament director of the Masters to be staged in Madison Square Garden, starting Wednesday.

“It’s not that we lose anything because an American isn’t here, it’s that we would gain something if McEnroe was here. He’s a cult figure, a movie-star creature, and we would draw people not interested in tennis.

“I’m sad there isn’t an American here, but the reality is tennis is played internationally, and right now no American is good enough.�

The competition begins Wednesday evening with the first of four days of round-robin play. No. 6-seeded Henri Leconte plays No. 3 Mats Wilander; No. 2 Boris Becker, the two-time Wimbledon champion, faces No. 7 Joakim Nystrom, and No. 4 Stefan Edberg plays No. 8 Andres Gomez.

Noah, seeded No. 5, makes his debut Thursday against Edberg--followed by No. 1 Lendl, the defending champion, against Gomez, and Wilander against Nystrom.

On Friday, it will be Becker-Leconte, Lendl-Edberg and Noah-Gomez, and the afternoon lineup Saturday is Nystrom-Leconte, Lendl-Noah and Becker-Wilander.

Scott assumed control of the Masters for the 1985 championship when Nabisco replaced Volvo as the sponsor. And after using a 16-man field with straight elimination last January, he is returning to an eight-man, round-robin format.

“We learned 16 is too many and isn’t really an elite enough field,� he explained. “It doesn’t separate all the other tournaments from the concluding championship.�

Previous attempts at a round robin led to travesty, with players occasionally finding it to their advantage to lose a match deliberately to create a more favorable semifinal draw. Scott is combating this in two ways.

First, although the top two finishers in each four-man half of the draw will advance to the semifinals Sunday night, Dec. 7, a coin flip will determine their opponents.

Second, each player is guaranteed only $10,000 for qualifying but will not receive any further money unless he continues to win. A victory during the round-robin stage is worth $20,000, winning semifinalists receive $40,000 each and the champion an additional $100,000. Thus, an undefeated champion would earn $210,000, the same prize offered by the U.S. Open.

“You could have the same two players playing twice in a row, but that could have happened under the old format,� Scott said. “If I’m a reasonably clever scheduler, it won’t happen.�

Scott has also made cosmetic changes such as substituting a hard-cover program for the traditional soft cover, making Chrysler the official car, using a different formula to choose ballboys, hiring officials from around the world instead of sticking strictly with the Eastern Tennis Assn., changing the hospitality area and banning commercial announcements on the loudspeaker and court.

One more innovation is that the final, a best-of-five sets, will be played Monday night, Dec. 8. It will be televised live by ESPN, which will beam 30 hours of play during the week.