Therein Lies the Rub: Becker Beats Medvedev, Stirs Furor

In the completion of a suspended match, seventh-seeded Boris Becker defeated ninth-seeded Andrei Medvedev Tuesday, 6-7, (7-5), 7-5, 7-6 (7-3), 6-7 (7-3), 7-5.

Unlike the other men’s quarterfinalists, Becker was forced to play on his day off. He returns again today, this time to face Sweden’s Christian Bergstrom.

The other quarterfinal matches include top-seeded Pete Sampras against No. 10 Michael Chang, sixth-seeded Todd Martin against unseeded Wayne Ferreira, and fourth-seeded Goran Ivanisevic against unseeded Guy Forget.

Actually, Becker might want to consider himself lucky to still be here. If it were up to Argentina’s Javier Frana or NBC’s John McEnroe, Becker would have been kicked out of the tournament for a breach of conduct.

It all goes back to Saturday night’s match against Frana. Ahead, 2-1, in the fourth set, Becker left the court for a lavatory break. During the break, however, he received treatment--leg-stretching manipulations--from his trainer. That is not allowed under tournament rules. Bathroom breaks are to be nothing more than bathroom breaks.

Becker later was fined $1,000, but that wasn’t the end of the controversy. In an interview with the British Broadcasting Corp., Becker acknowledged he is “not up to date on the rules.” And after his match Tuesday, Becker found himself peppered with questions about the incident.

“I don’t think I did anything wrong,” he said. “I don’t think I was cheating anybody. That is all I have to say.”

It wasn’t all Frana had to say. At an impromptu news conference, he was asked if he thought Becker should have been disqualified for his actions.

“Let me answer that with another question,” he said. “What would have happened if I would have received that treatment by my own (trainer)?”