TENNIS / AUSTRALIAN OPEN : Becker Puts Best Foot Forward

Boris Becker, complaining about “very sticky” courts in the Australian Open, escaped the ankle injuries that felled top Aussie hope Mark Woodforde and the No. 2 woman, Gabriela Sabatini on Saturday.

Becker, seeking his third consecutive Grand Slam tournament title, beat Olivier Delaitre of France, 6-3, 6-1, 6-4, to join John McEnroe, Aaron Krickstein and defending champion Ivan Lendl in the fourth round.

“The court is very sticky, and when you’re a little tired and just hanging in there, that’s when your ankle can go,” Becker said. “I’ve had too many problems in the past. I’m taping everything I have to tape.”

Delaitre, ranked 129th, said he was impressed by the center-court stadium, “not by Boris.”

“I think he has to play much better serves,” Delaitre said. “He missed too many easy volleys and baseline shots.”

“How many games did he win? Eight,” Becker said. “I’m pretty satisfied with the way I played. How bad does he want to lose?”

Sabatini, an Argentine who was the top threat to upset two-time defending champion Steffi Graf, left in a wheelchair after falling to the court while charging a drop shot and winning a point with a 6-2, 1-0 lead against West German Claudia Porwik.

A semifinalist here and at the U.S. Open last year, Sabatini had played well this week and said she was probably the only woman at the tournament who wasn’t afraid to play Graf.

Sabatini is ranked third in the world behind Graf and Martina Navratilova, who skipped this year’s Australian Open.

“It doesn’t feel like a victory at all,” Porwik said. “I hope she gets back soon and it’s not too bad for her. I saw her foot stick on the surface. It happens on hard courts like this when you can’t slide. Within a minute (her ankle) was like an egg and must have been very painful.”

Woodforde, leading the second set, 5-4, after American David Wheaton won the first set, 6-3, sprained his right ankle on a different court at the 3-year-old National Tennis Center. The courts are spongy, hard surfaces and do not have a history of producing injuries.

Woodforde was hitting a forehand from and open stance, and his foot “just grabbed,” Wheaton said. “It never came off the court.

“I don’t have enough facts to say the courts are dangerous, but when it happens to two players in 90 minutes, you start to think.”

Wheaton said he turned his ankle in the first round and has been taping it ever since.

McEnroe, a veteran warrior, has rediscovered his old skills and added a new personality, a Mr. Nice Guy who smiles sweetly, talks politely with the umpire, even tells jokes. He kills with kindness, yet once again brandishes a left-handed serve-and-volley game nearly as lethal as when he ruled men’s tennis in the early 1980s.

McEnroe is not only a model of decorum these days, he’s winning again, gliding easily into the round of 16 on Friday with a 6-2, 6-3, 6-2 victory over fellow American Dan Goldie.

A month shy of 31, McEnroe says he’s come to realize at last that the temper tantrums that once fired him up now merely burn him out.

As he looks ahead to his next match against Sweden’s Mikael Pernfors on Sunday and a possible quarterfinal meeting with fiery Frenchman Yannick Noah, McEnroe is trying to conserve his energy.

“It’s not the sort of situation where you have energy to burn in this weather,” McEnroe said. “The heat can catch up to you at times.”

Not even hecklers and chatty fans in the record crowd of 21,028 could ruffle McEnroe, who displayed his full repertoire of shots and bounced around the court as if he were 21.

“I feel like I’m controlling play, that’s the main thing,” said McEnroe, who hasn’t dropped a set in three matches.