Becker Wears Out Aguilera, 11 Shirts : U.S. Open: On a sticky night, he goes through more changes than Madonna in a 7-5, 6-3, 6-2 opening victory.

On a hot and sticky Monday night, the first day of the U. S. Open, Boris Becker explained the secret of his success:

“Eleven shirts,” Becker said. “Just enough.”

Becker’s wet shirts clung closer to him than first-round opponent Juan Aguilera, who put up only mild resistence and lost to the defending champion, 7-5, 6-3, 6-2.

Becker returned to the scene of his only non-Wimbledon Grand Slam victory and pronounced himself comfortable with the surroundings.

“It felt much better this year, better than any other year,” he said. But as dominant as Becker was against Aguilera, he was not exactly overpowering. Becker served only two aces and got in only 66% of his first serves.

He trailed, 5-3, in the first set and watched impatiently as Aguilera served for the set at 5-4.

“I thought I had better get going,” Becker said.

And why had he yelled earlier?

“I wasn’t very happy to be down, 5-3,” he explained.

The vital statistics from the first set: 52 minutes, three shirts for Becker.

Aguilera, who lost in the second round in his only other U.S. Open appearance in 1984, could not hurt Becker as he did when he beat him earlier this year on clay in the German Open.

Becker came into the Open with a victory in his last tournament, the GTE U.S. Hardcourts, and said afterward: “I’m back.”

Does that sound like a warning?

“It always helps to win a tournament, especially before a Grand Slam,” Becker said. “A couple of times this year (Wimbledon, Queens, German Open), I lost in the final (because) I couldn’t win one more match. Finally I did it and it’s good.

“It feels better than losing,” he said.

Rain played havoc with some, but not all, of the matches Monday.

One it didn’t was eighth-seeded Brad Gilbert’s victory over Mats Wilander of Sweden, 6-4, 3-6, 6-3, 7-5.

The first player to walk on the court was Monica Seles. The first player to leave he court was Seles, who played an 11 a.m. match against Elena Pampoulova and won, 6-0, 6-0, in 44 minutes.

Seles employed a simple strategy: “I just tried to keep the ball in play.”

Seles, third-seeded, also kept it out of reach of Pampoulova’s racket. Seles cracked 18 winners, won 74% of the points on her first serve and is 42-1 since the middle of March.

Seles, who meets Ros Fairbank-Nideffer in the second round, is moving toward a possible quarterfinal showdown with Gabriela Sabatini and a semifinal with Martina Navratilova.

If Seles had no trouble with her opponent, top-seeded and defending champion Steffi Graf had only a bit.

She defeated 19-year-old Canadian Maureen Drake, 6-1, 6-1, in a match that lasted 41 minutes but was halted for 87 minutes because of two rain delays.

The first delay was the longest--62 minutes--and was caused by a downpour that flooded Stadium Court. Groundskeepers in red shirts used large rubber mops to squeegee the water and air blowers to dry courts, while some English writers began referring to the Open as “Swimbledon.”

Rain curtailed the opening day schedule, forcing 22 of 64 scheduled matches to be postponed or carried over.

Graf, who did not arrive until Sunday night, announced that her confidence is high: “I’m very eager right now, so you can be sure that I’m going to be well prepared.”

Thomas Muster, ranked No. 6 and sixth-seeded at the U.S. Open, said he will appeal the 10-week suspension and $20,000 fine levied by the ATP Tour.

Muster, who defeated Aki Rahunen, 5-7, 6-4, 6-0, 3-0, in a first-round match Monday when Rahunen retired because of the heat, said he was not distracted by the controversy over his actions in a tournament Aug. 7 at Prague, Czechoslovakia. Muster played one game and retired from his match, claiming an injury.

According to the ATP, Muster should not have played if he was not healthy and thus violated the “best efforts” and “unsportsmanlike conduct” provisions of the ATP Tour Code. However, Muster’s manager, Ronnie Leitgeb, said Prague tournament director Jan Kodes advised Muster to play even a little to satisfy the fans.

“We don’t think it’s a fair suspension,” said Leitgeb, who claimed Muster would not have been penalized if he remained silent about the injury and defaulted.

“This is what I criticize,” Leitgeb said. “If players tank, in my opinion, and I’ve seen it happen many times this year, they don’t get fined and don’t get suspended.”

Steffi Graf has tied Jimmy Connors’ record of 159 consecutive weeks ranked No. 1. Connors’ streak at the top lasted from July 29, 1974-Aug. 16, 1977.

Graf has been No. 1 since Aug. 1987, the day after she defeated Chris Evert in the final of the Virginia Slims of Los Angeles.

World Championship Tennis (WCT), in business since 1967, is folding. Directors Lamar Hunt and Al. G. Hill, Jr., announced the move, effective immediately and canceled events in London; Scottsdale, Ariz., and Dallas.

The WCT events, once part of the men’s pro tour, lost that status and became exhibitions on the IBM/ATP Tour.