WIMBLEDON : TENNIS / THOMAS BONK : Connors: Becker Has to Win Wimbledon

Jimmy Connors finds it difficult to pick against Boris Becker, who will play Stefan Edberg in the men’s singles final today at Wimbledon.

“I think right now he’s playing the best he can play,” Connors said. “He has stayed the course all year. And who knows how long he’s going to play? I think he has to win here. This makes his whole year.”

Connors, who won the Wimbledon title in 1982, is missing his first All England Championship in 19 years and providing commentary for NBC. At 37, he has dropped to No. 66 in the rankings since he injured his wrist in February in Milan, Italy, his only match of the year.

“I’m past the point of being concerned about my ranking,” said Connors, who reinjured the wrist last week when he hit a few balls on a grass court.

Connors’ injury will prevent his keeping a full schedule the rest of the year, but he still plans to play in the U.S. Open. Next year, Connors plans to play 10 to 12 events, although he thinks the men’s game no longer suits him.

“I’m a victim of goon tennis and a victim of the powerful, big rackets,” Connors said. “Finesse is gone. It’s a totally different game now. No longer will you see guys like (Ilie) Nastase or (John) McEnroe, who had feel and finesse. Those days are over.”

Even though Connors favors Becker, he is quick to point out that Edberg’s chances cannot be overlooked.

“He won’t make things easy,” Connors said. “He’s been over here working on grass since he lost in the first round of the French Open, so I think he is kind of a man on a mission, too.”

Heeeeeeeere’s Steve: It was probably the week’s most embarrassing moment. The All England Club believes it has nothing if it does not have tradition, and one of the club’s rules is that a member must sit in on postmatch interviews.

Jeremy Rhode of the All England Club accompanied Jim Grabb of Tucson to Grabb’s first-round postmatch news conference. When it was over, Rhode made a brief statement:

“I’m Jeremy Rhode, I’m sort of the new kid on the block. This is the first postmatch interview I have conducted, and I must say I hope all the young men I have in the future are as articulate as young Steve here.”

Soccer to me: Ivan Lendl has managed to avoid contracting World Cup fever. Here is Lendl’s assessment of soccer: “It’s like watching 90 minutes of people lying around holding their legs.”

Best line: From Martin Johnson in the Independent, writing about how Vitas Gerulaitis played in his loss to John Lloyd in the men’s over-35 division.

“Gerulaitis was so immobile at times that he was in danger of being reported to security as an unattended package.”

Best fine: Kevin Curren was docked $500 for breaking the copying machine in the referee’s office. Curren kicked the machine, angry that his doubles match had been postponed because of darkness.

But no, yes: Wimbledon’s “Yes-I-have-no-bananas” Award goes to Jakob Hlasek of Switzerland, who offered this confused assessment of his game after losing to Lendl in the second round: “My whole game is OK, but my serve is gone and that is why my game is gone.”

Second-best line: From Andres Gomez of Ecuador, when asked whether he celebrated his French Open victory back home: “I just had one party. It lasted a week.”

More Gomez: Although he made a quick first-round exit from Wimbledon, Gomez was still excited about the reaction of his countrymen in Ecuador to his Grand Slam title in Paris.

Gomez said hundreds of people stood on the runway to meet his plane at the airport in Guayaquil.

“And then they put me in an army truck, and I got some people in it, like my brothers and my cousins, and we filled it up and then we just went around the city,” Gomez said.

“And then you turn back your head and the line of cars just is three miles long, and you know that was probably the best moment I had in my life,” he said.

“It was good to be truly accepted, and that kind of receptionist is hard to forget.”

Receptionist?

Travel plans: The German magazine Stern reported that Steffi Graf is considering leaving Bruhl, West Germany, to live permanently in Florida. Graf, 21, has been troubled by West German press reports linking her father to a 22-year-old topless model who claims that Peter Graf, 52, fathered her child.

Coincidentally, Steffi Graf recently agreed to team with the German National Tourist Office to promote and encourage travel to West Germany.

Protest movement: During a rain delay at Wimbledon, Bud Collins, tennis columnist for the Boston Globe and a commentator for NBC, reminisced about his former job as tennis coach at Brandeis, where the late left-wing activist Abbie Hoffman once played on his team.

What kind of player was Hoffman?

“Conservative,” Collins said.

“I told him to practice serving, but not in the New York Correctional Institute,” Collins said. “I told him to dig in, but not to go underground.”