U.S. Open Tennis Championships : Becker Beats Srejber, Reaches Semifinals

Boris Becker, who seems to make a habit of talking about his opponent after a match, did so again Thursday night.

No sooner had he beaten Milan Srejber, 6-3, 6-2, 6-1, in the quarterfinals of the U.S. Open at the National Tennis Center, than he began delivering verbal volleys aimed at the Czech.

The match was more lopsided than the score indicates. In the poorly played third set, many of the 20,773 fans were loudly booing Srejber. At one point in the set, a fan yelled to Becker, ‘Hurry up, maybe we can make ‘Hill Street Blues.’ ”

It was not a pretty match. In his postmatch interview, Becker characterized Srejber, and all Czechs, as strange. The match itself, considering it was a quarterfinal of a Grand Slam tournament, was also strange.

The 6-foot 8-inch Srejber’s serve is his weapon. His only weapon. Thursday night, Srejber’s serve was good, but Becker was able to return it without difficulty.

As far as other aspects of the match are concerned, this statistic may say it all: Becker had no unforced errors, Srejber had 15.

” (Near) the end of the third set I looked up at the scoreboard,” Becker said. “I saw it was 6-3, 6-2, 4-0. I thought, ‘What the hell is going on? It’s a quarterfinal match.’

“He’s a strange guy, also off the court. I don’t talk to him at all. Not many players talk to him. I don’t know what is happening in his head.”

After Becker delivered this impromptu analysis of Srejber, he discussed his next opponent, Miloslav Mecir, also a Czech.

“He’s strange,” Becker said, warming to the word. “After he won his first-round match, he told me ‘I can’t move on this court. I want to go home.’ Now, he’s in the semifinals.

“He’s a little strange. Maybe all the Czechs are kind of strange. Probably the land.”

These pronouncements are not new for Becker, who is likely to say whatever comes into his 18-year-old head. Revenge might have been the motive behind Thursday’s comments.The last time the two played, Srejber won. That came in a tournament in Boca West, Fla., last February.

“I do not like to lose to the same person twice in a row,” Becker said before the match.

It was a different Srejber Thursday. Becker said he thought Srejber, who is ranked No. 37, might have given up on some points. “Maybe his legs were stiff,” Becker said.

Srejber was less than talkative during his press conference. Asked what the difference was between this match and the first time he played Becker, Srejber said, “Last time I won, now I lost.”

It went downhill from there. Attempts to draw him out were fruitless, as he stared at the back of the interview room. The rest of his answers went like this: “No, sugar, energy, no, no.”

Everything not related to the negatives refer to the liquid Srejber was swigging from a brown bottle during the match. The sugary-fluid, Srejber said, gave him energy.

He must have run out before he finished the match.

In another quarterfinal match Thursday, Mecir, the homesick Czech, defeated Sweden’s Joakim Nystrom, 6-4, 6-2, 3-6, 6-2.

The match lasted nearly 2 1/2 hours, not counting two rain delays, but it didn’t take long for the 16th-seeded Mecir to take command over the seventh-seeded Nystrom. Tuesday, Mecir had upset another Swede, second-seeded Mats Wilander.

The remaining Swede in the tournament, Stefan Edberg, will play Ivan Lendl in one semifinal. Mecir will play Becker in the other.

Mecir’s serve-and-volley style is well-suited to roll over the Swedes’ patient baseline game.

“It’s tough to do anything,” Nystrom said. “I mean, my game is not serve-and-volley. And if I was to serve-and-volley against him, maybe I would have lost by 6-2, 6-2, 6-1 or something.”

Mecir, 22, got some attention earlier in the week when he told reporters that he didn’t like playing in the United States. “I am not comfortable, the tournaments are not good,” he said.

Lendl pronounced Mecir homesick. “He’s playing well, that’s going for him,” Lendl said. “What’s going against him is he doesn’t like being here. He doesn’t like playing in America. He’s homesick, and that hurts him.

“To play well you’ve got to feel well, you’ve got to enjoy yourself, you’ve got to be happy (in) what you’re doing. When I asked him last Wednesday how he was, he says, ‘Well, as good as I can be in America.’ He just prefers to go home. He likes to be in Czechoslovakia and go fishing. That’s the way he is. You can’t blame him for that.”

After Thursday’s match, Mecir didn’t back down much from his earlier statements.

“Are you still homesick?” he was asked.

“A little bit,” Mecir said.

“Do you like the United States any better now (that he’s advanced this far)?

“It’s a better feeling when I am more far, but I’m still looking forward to go home.”

Finally, the bashful Mecir was asked if he would become a big star in Czechoslovakia after reaching the semifinals of the U.S. Open.

“Well, I don’t know,” he said. “I hope my friends like me again. I don’t care if I’m a big star or not.”