Tennis Roundup : Becker Needs Three Sets to Get Past Carlsson

Third-seeded Boris Becker of West Germany was extended to 3 sets by Johan Carlsson of Sweden Tuesday in the second round of the $642,500 Stockholm Open-Scandinavian tennis championships at Stockholm.

Becker, an impressive winner of the Tokyo Grand Prix 9 days ago, struggled for long spells on the medium-fast Plexipave court but rallied in the final 4 games to win, 6-2, 2-6, 6-3.

Down a service break at 2-3, Becker broke Carlsson for 3-3 and 5-3 and only lost 2 points in his last 2 service games before a sellout crowd of 5,000.

Becker’s doubles partner, Slobodan Zivojinovic of Yugoslavia, seeded No. 13, was eliminated in straight sets by Jim Pugh, 6-3, 6-4, in a first-round match.

No. 7 Emilio Sanchez of Spain and unseeded Tore Meinecke of West Germany beat Swedish juniors to advance to the third round.

Sanchez, a clay-court specialist, outlasted Lars Jonsson, 4-6, 6-3, 6-4, and Meinecke beat Magnus Larsson, 7-6, 6-4.

No. 10 Mikael Pernfors beat fellow Swede Niklas Utgren, 6-1, 7-5.

Two seeded players, a Czech and a Soviet, won first-round matches in the $300,000 New England Virginia Slims tournament at Worcester, Mass.

Fifth-seeded Helena Sukova of Czechoslovakia eliminated Elise Burgin of Baltimore, 7-6, 6-4, before a small afternoon gallery.

And Natalia Zvereva, seeded sixth, made short work of Hu Na later in the day, the 17-year-old Soviet winning 6-3, 6-4.