TENNIS ROUNDUP : Easy Wins for Becker and Lendl

Ivan Lendl and Boris Becker breezed to easy first-round victories Wednesday at the New South Wales Open at Sydney, Australia.

Lendl, seeded No. 1, beat Canada’s Andrew Sznajder, 6-1, 6-3, and West Germany’s Boris Becker powered his way to a 6-3, 6-2 win over Alexander Volkov of the Soviet Union in a match that lasted just 72 minutes.

In other matches, Pete Sampras of Palos Verdes, beat Tim Mayotte 6-7 (8-6), 2-6, and Stanford’s David Wheaton surprised sixth-seeded Andres Gomez, 7-5, 6-4.

Also advancing to the second round were American Aaron Krickstein, Sweden’s Mats Wilander, West Germany’s Carl-Uwe Steeb and France’s Yannick Noah.

John McEnroe and Stefan Edberg won easily in the first two matches of the Rio Challenge tournament at Adelaide, Australia.

McEnroe made quick work of France’s Henri Leconte, 6-0, 6-2, and Edberg defeated Australian Darren Cahill, 6-1, 6-3.

Edberg was too strong and consistent for Cahill, who is attempting to comeback after a knee operation last month.

Defending champion Ramesh Krishnan of India struggled past New Zealander Bruce Derlin, 7-6 (9-7), 7-5, to reach the quarterfinals of the New Zealand Open at Auckland.

Krishnan had to save two set points in the first-set tiebreaker and then led 4-1 in the second set, but allowed Derlin to tie, 4-4, before finally taking control.

Third-seeded Magnus Gustafsson of Sweden, No. 5-seeded Amos Mansdorf of Israel and eighth-seeded Scott Davis of the United States all joined the unseeded Krishnan in the last eight.

Gustafsson overpowered Briton Jeremy Bates, 6-2, 6-0.