Tennis Roundup : Becker Beats Connors for Queen’s Club Title and Looks Ahead

Boris Becker won his last tournament match before Wimbledon Monday and pronounced himself ready to bid for a third consecutive All-England title.

“If I’m not confident now, I never will be,” Becker said after rallying to defeat Jimmy Connors, 6-7, 6-3, 6-4, and win the $40,000 first prize at the Queen’s Club championships in London.

“This is a good win for me after playing for so long on clay at the French Open,” said the 19-year-old West German, who reached the semifinals at Paris.

“I came to Queens without practicing a lot on grass and still beat most guys easily until the semifinal and final. I have not been playing 100%, but I still won the title.”

Becker needed 2 hours 18 minutes to outlast Connors, 34, who had several chances to win his first tournament in 2 1/2 years.

Connors, a three-time champion at Queens Club, played well for half the match, often outwitting the frustrated Becker.

Returning serves superbly and beating his opponent with low, angled passing shots, Connors took the opening set on a tiebreaker and had two break points for a 3-0 lead in the second set, with his serve to come.

But he made two forehand errors and Becker, quick to seize the chance, won the game, broke Connors twice and tied the match.

In the third set, Connors continued to fight hard, jokingly shouting, “Don’t do that again,” when Becker engaged him in a thrilling rally that Connors won.

He put more pressure on Becker’s unusually suspect second serve but was having just as much trouble holding his service.

As Connors finally appeared to tire in the sun that followed days of rain, Becker won a fifth successive service break at love and served out the match.

“He definitely had a chance to beat me,” Becker said. “If he had led 3-0 in the second set, it would have been difficult for me to come back. In the end, I played the right shots at the right time.”

Becker hit 13 aces but double-faulted 10 times and dropped his serve five times.

“I think I’m playing much better overall than last year in my strokes, in my volleys, passing shots and movement,” Becker said. “But I must improve my serve.

“For 1 1/2 sets today, I could not get my timing. Jimmy was running around better than I was, even though he could almost be my father. But I knew he had not won a singles title for 2 1/2 years and that kept me going.”

Connors has lost four straight times to Becker, all but one of them close matches.

He said getting to his third final of 1987 was not good enough, even for someone of his age.

“I’m not satisfied. I should have won the match, there’s no getting around that. But I lost concentration and that bothers me,” Connors said.

“I had the opportunities to win it in two and I did not seize them. I was a set and a break up and that should be good enough for anybody, young or old.”

Connors’ last tournament victory was in October of 1984 at Tokyo. Since then, he has been defeated in a tournament final nine times.

Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert scored easy victories in the first round of the $200,000 Pilkington Glass women’s grass court tournament at Eastbourne, England.

Navratilova, the defending champion, won 12 consecutive games at one point en route to defeating 19-year-old Marianne Werdel of Bakersfield in only 37 minutes, 6-1, 6-0.

About a possible confrontation with Evert in next Sunday’s final, Navratilova said: “I’m not even thinking about it. I’ve got my next match to think about.”

Evert defeated Sharon Walsh-Peete, 6-2, 6-1. Evert broke serve in the fourth and eighth games of the first set and the fourth and sixth games of the second set.

The day wasn’t without upsets, however. No. 9-seeded Wendy Turnbull of Australia was beaten by Kathy Jordan, 7-5, 3-6, 6-3. France’s Natalie Tauziat, seeded No. 16, was beaten by Britain’s Ann Hobbs, 6-2, 7-6.

Umpire Peter Alderson, who worked the 1979 men’s championship match at Wimbledon, has been barred from this year’s tournament for selling tickets, officials said.

Alderson, a dentist who has been a tennis line judge and umpire for 25 years, acknowledged in a newspaper interview that he accepted $5,600 for six seats each on Centre Court and Court No. 1 at this year’s tournament.

The tickets were given to Alderson as part of a block set aside for the event’s umpires, the British Tennis Umpires Assn. said.