Graf Teaches Capriati Hard Lesson : Wimbledon: Defending champion’s powerful forehands overwhelm 14-year-old challenger, 6-2, 6-4. Becker beats Cash, Edberg defeats Chang.

Steffi Graf showed Jennifer Capriati today how much the 14-year-old has to learn about grass-court tennis.

Using powerful forehands, slicing serves and a rock-solid net game, the top-ranked Graf beat her youngest challenger in straight sets in their first meeting to reach the quarterfinals at Wimbledon.

Graf, 21, won an eagerly awaited Centre Court match, 6-2, 6-4. Refreshed by a quick weekend trip to West Germany, the defending champion won the big points and kept Capriati from setting the rhythm.

“I don’t think she’s old, she just has experience,” Capriati said. Graf said Capriati was much more advanced than she was at 14.

Capriati, the whiz-kid from Florida who at No. 12 was the youngest seed in Grand Slam history, showed the type of play that has raised her so high in the four months since she turned pro.

She served well, ran down shot after shot and matched Graf’s firepower from the baseline. But she rarely came to the net and Graf wrapped it up with her trademark, a forehand flashed down the line and buried in the corner on her third match point.

“The forehand. I had always heard about that forehand,” Capriati said, her voice filled with awe. “It’s just a bullet. She moves so quick. I mean, there’s always a ball that comes back.”

It was a smile of relief that covered Graf’s face as she shook Capriati’s hand at the net. Her reign at the top has been under fire, with 16-year-old Monica Seles beating her twice in a row and Capriati climbing fast. And then there is the threat of 33-year-old Martina Navratilova, seeking a record ninth Wimbledon title.

An autumn-like start of the second week of the Grand Slam tournament had 14 fourth-round singles matches, and most of the seeded survivors of this upset-riddled event moved on.

Boris Becker and Stefan Edberg turned Centre Court meetings of champions into routs, and Seles scored a quick and clean victory over an outmatched American.

Edberg, the 1988 Wimbledon champion and runner-up last year, beat Michael Chang, the 1989 French Open winner, 6-3, 6-2, 6-1. Chang, who defeated Edberg in five sets to win in Paris last year, held serve only three times in a dozen games.

Becker, the defending champion who is aiming for his fourth Wimbledon title overall, beat 1987 champ Pat Cash, 7-6, 6-1, 6-4. Cash was a wild-card entry but had looked strong in the previous three rounds.

Seles won her 36th match in a row, taking just 45 minutes to beat Ann Henricksson, 6-1, 6-0.

Next for Seles is No. 5 Zina Garrison, who eliminated 10th-seeded Helena Sukova, 6-3, 6-3, and has not dropped a set so far.

Navratilova also won comfortably, making the quarterfinals for the 16th consecutive year.

Navratilova, the women’s second seed, registered a 6-3, 6-3 victory over 14th-seeded Judith Wiesner of Austria.

Ivan Lendl, the men’s top seed, stayed on course to finally end his quest for a Wimbledon title, but he had a tougher time than expected.

He beat Bryan Shelton, an American ranked 125th, 7-6, 6-7, 6-4, 6-4, in a match suspended by darkness at one set apiece Saturday night.

The day’s lone upset had Christian Bergstrom of Sweden beating 11th-seeded Guy Forget of France 6-4, 3-6, 6-3, 7-5.