Tennis Roundup : Becker Loses to Vajda in Monte Carlo Open

In a shocking upset, Marian Vajda of Czechoslovakia beat two-time Wimbledon champion Boris Becker of West Germany, 6-3, 5-7, 6-1, Tuesday to eliminate the world’s fourth-ranked player in the second round of the $492,500 Monte Carlo Open.

It is the second straight year that Becker lost his opening match at Monaco.

Last year, as the top-seeded player, he was beaten by Jimmy Arias after receiving a first-round bye.

“Boris didn’t (use) good tactics today. I was more patient in the rallies, so I felt better,” said Vajda, ranked 42nd in the world. “I felt I could have played the ball 100 times over the net and not miss.”

Becker agreed that he didn’t play well in his first match on clay since last year’s French Open in June, when he lost to Mats Wilander in the semifinals.

“Marian made my life difficult out there. He played very, very long balls, and I couldn’t get in,” the third-seeded Becker said.

“It’s much more difficult for me to get ready on clay. You have to be well prepared,” he said. “You have to have a few matches under your belt. The longer the rallies were, the worse I played. I had bad groundstrokes out there.”

Vajda broke Becker’s serve in the sixth game of the first set to take a 4-2 lead as Becker’s errors set up the break, and he held his serve from there to win, 6-3.

The 23-year-old Czech broke Becker’s service at love in the first game of the second set and added another to lead, 4-1. But Becker came back to win the second set, 7-5.

“At 4-1, I got nervous. Then at 5-4, I just got tired,” Vajda said. “Two days ago, I was up all night with stomach problems.”

But, in the third set, Becker started making errors again. He was broken three straight times to give Vajda the set, and the match.

“At the end I was trying to run every ball down, but it catches up to you,” Becker said.

In another second-round match, Tore Meinecke of West Germany eliminated eighth-seeded Emilio Sanchez of Spain, 6-3, 6-3.

Fifth-seeded Andres Gomez of Ecuador was the only one of the top eight seeded players to advance, beating Uruguay’s Marcelo Filippini, 7-6, 6-4.

Ivan Lendl, the world’s No. 1 player making his return to competition after being sidelined for six weeks by a stress fracture in his foot, plays his first singles match today.

“I feel good; I’m 110%,” Lendl said. “It’s just going to be a question of playing matches, that’s all (to get back his rhythm). Maybe one set, maybe three weeks, you never know.”

Martina Navratilova defeated Iva Budarova of Czechoslovakia, 7-5, 6-1, and Chris Evert beat Maria Lindstrom of Sweden, 6-2, 6-2, to advance to the second round of a $250,000 Virginia Slims tournament at Houston.