BORIS BECKER, who defaulted, in Ostrava last week with a recurrence of a wrist injury sustained at Wimbledon, showed no sign of discomfort as he beat Britain's Greg Rusedski 6-4, 6-4 in the second round of the Eurocard Open in Stuttgart yesterday.

Rusedski's fierce serve, timed at up to 130 mph, failed to intimidate the sixth seeded German, whose far superior ground game gave him an advantage whenever he made a return or the left hander missed a first serve.

A match that produced few rallies was over in an hour - far quicker than the five set contest the two staged when they met earlier this year at the Australian Open. In a serve dominated second set yesterday, 13 of the first 26 points were aces.

Rusedski, who won the Beijing title two weeks ago, never seriously threatened to trouble Becker. In the second set he won only four points off the German's serve, one of those on a double fault.