Tennis Roundup : Becker Overcomes Himself, and Lavalle

It was a match Boris Becker might have lost a year ago.

Becker, more confident and mature since winning at Wimbledon last summer, overcame a ragged start and knocked off Mexican teen-ager Leonardo Lavalle, 6-4, 6-3, Thursday to reach the quarterfinals of the $435,000 Italian Open tennis tournament at Rome.

Becker, of West Germany, struggled to win the opening set, then fell behind, 3-2, when Lavalle broke his serve in the second set. But the third-seeded Becker overpowered Lavalle with strong forehand groundstrokes on the clay center court at the Foro Italico.

“Until a year ago, losing a service normally meant that I would end up losing the whole set,” Becker said. “Now, I concentrate, work harder and fight back, which is always possible, especially on clay. It was a difficult match. I played badly in the first set. But when I keep my head, I think I can beat anyone.”

In the quarterfinals, Becker will meet unseeded Spaniard Emilio Sanchez, who eliminated Aaron Krickstein, 6-3, 6-3.

In other matches, top-seeded Czech Ivan Lendl beat Paolo Cane of Italy, 6-2, 6-4; defending champion Yannick Noah of France, seeded No. 4, defeated Kent Carlsson of Sweden, 6-4, 6-2; unseeded Diego Perez of Uruguay upset Joakim Nystrom of Sweden, 7-6, 3-6, 7-5; Henri Leconte of France eliminated Miloslav Mecir of Czechoslovakia, 6-1, 7-5; Libor Pimek of Czechoslovakia routed Ronald Agenor of Haiti, 6-1, 6-2, and second-seeded Mats Wilander of Sweden ousted Soviet qualifier Andrei Chesnokov, 6-4, 6-3.

Second-seeded Steffi Graf of West Germany trounced Sabrina Goles of Yugoslavia, 6-1, 6-0, to reach the quarterfinals of the $150,000 West German Open at Berlin.

The 16-year-old Graf overcame a strained stomach muscle and needed only 47 minutes to beat Goles at West Berlin’s Rot Weiss club.

Graf’s next opponent will be Andrea Temesvari of Hungary, who rallied from a disastrous first set to defeat Helen Kelesi of Canada, 1-6, 6-1, 6-3.

In other matches, Bettina Bunge of West Germany surprised Helena Sukova of Czechoslovakia, 7-6, 6-2; fourth-seeded Hana Mandlikova of Czechoslovakia defeated Kathy Horvath, 6-3, 6-2, and Jo Durie of Britain overcame Iva Budarova of Czechoslovakia, 3-6, 6-3, 6-1.