Becker back from the dead

Wimbledon has never been able to ignore Boris Becker, nor Becker Wimbledon. Having bid farewell to his favourite stomping ground two years ago, withdrawal symptoms seemingly sent Becker spiralling into cold turkey forcing his return this year to the sort of acclaim he has always enjoyed.

Reverting to type, Becker became embroiled in a marathon three hour 53 minute slog against wild card Scot Miles Maclagan, taking the match to five sets and, after three match points down, finally winning 5-7, 6-7, 6-4, 7-5, 6-2, aceing his opponent on the final point.

It was probably not the length of match the 1985, 1986 and 1989 winner would have liked given his 31-year-old legs and the fact that he hadn't played a five-setter for two years. The German will now meet 15th seed and compatriot Nicolas Kiefer in a match where there appears to be bad blood.

The two have had personal differences in the past. Kiefer was, like Becker, a quarter-finalist in 1997 - the year he ousted the latter as national number one.

"He doesn't want to talk to me. I don't know why and I don't care," said Kiefer yesterday.

French Open champion Andre Agassi made sure of a second round place, dropping only six games in a 6-1, 6-2, 6-3 victory over Rumanian Andrei Pavel.

Agassi, a winner of the title in 1992 and this year seeded fourth, appeared to have little difficulty moving from clay to grass. "It is hard not to be confident," admitted Agassi. "But I must say it is a relief to play two and three shots a point rather than 12 or 13 like in Paris.

"It's not easy to stray from the baseline but my confidence is there. If you can get to the second week when the courts harden and the ball bounces higher then maybe you can cause some problems."

Agassi refused to be drawn into a comparison between his four different "Slams" compared to the 11 "Slams" of Sampras.

"I don't like to argue," he said. "It is probably more appropriate if this discussion took place after our careers."

Several of the game's biggest hitters also got a chance to loosen up their delivery arms. Second seed Australian Patrick Rafter enjoyed a 6-3, 6-2, 6-2 win against Italian Cristiano Caratti and now meets Sweden's Jonas Bjorkman in round two, while Holland's Richard Krajicek blew away Norway's Christian Ruud 6-2, 6-3, 61.

"The last couple of matches I haven't served that well. A bit of the touch went and it wasn't really there today," said Rafter.

"It's a very open draw and it's a good opportunity for me to do well here. It's in the back of my mind that I want to have a good tournament."

Rafter went on to support the women's drive for equal prize money at the competition, one of the few male players to do so.

"They are getting good crowds so there is no reason why in the future or very shortly that they can't have equal prize money. I think women and men should get together in tournaments," he said.

Former world number one Yevgeny Kafelnikov spent just five minutes yesterday completing his passage into the second round. The Australian Open champion and number three seed finished off a match held over from Monday by winning two games to beat Swede Magnus Larsson 6-7, 7-5, 7-6, 4-6, 7-5.

In other matches, number eight seed Todd Martin of the United States recovered from two sets down to beat German Hendrik Dreekmann, while number 11 seed, Brazilian clay specialist Gustavo Kuerten, won his first ever match at Wimbledon by thrashing Briton Chris Wilkinson on Centre Court.

Kiefer, the 15th seed, shrugged off a first set loss to beat compatriot Christian Vinck in four.

One other notable winner was Lleyton Hewitt, just 18 but already ranked 35 in the world, and he made it a teen double for Australia by crushing Uruguayan qualifier Marcelo Filippini for the loss of just five games.

In the late match, three-time Wimbledon finalist Goran Ivanisevic had little trouble going through to the second round, beating Sweden's Mikael Tillstrom 6-4 6-3 6-4.