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Becker shopping for Wimbledon mementoes

Boris Becker wants to take away a few mementoes of ''home'' when he finally bows out of the Wimbleon Championships.

The three-time winner, who will retire next month, has approached the All-England Club in hope of buying his old locker plus benches from the Court 1 changing room.

Becker thinks that the bench will go well in the garden of his Munich mansion and will always be there to remind him of the Grand Slam tournament where he won three titles and broke onto the tennis scene as a teenager in 1985 with a trophy.

Becker's favourite locker is number 7, which he used en route to his hat-trick of titles.

Another former German star is also in the hunt.

Michael Stich, who beat Becker in the 1991 final and retired from the game in 1997, is trying to convince the club to part with some of its furniture so he can put it in his home as well.

Rusedski's Baaarmy Army
With much of British sport suffering through losing efforts, a good-natured tradition from cricket may be starting to rub off on one of the more successful of British sportsmen.

English Test cricket over the past few seasons may have been a disaster, but that doesn't seem to bother the band of travelling fans known as the ''Barmy Army''.

The die-hards show up at England away fixtures, which are usually held in pleasant hot-weather climes like Australia, the West Indies and South Africa.

Now, it seems, a scouting party from the ''Army'' has arrived at the All England Club.

With the Canadian-born Greg Rusedski's ''Britishness'' now a foregone conclusion - betrayed only when the ninth seed opens his mouth and comes forth with a north American twang - he is getting support from the Wimbledon faithful.

At his matches during week 1, a gang of four supporters fronted up with an inflatable sheep which had ''Rusedski's Baaarmy Army'' written on it.

Alas, the fun didn't last, as a sour steward demanded that the offending item be removed.

Hingis on hope
Martina Hingis will certainly be hoping that her misery from last week's first-round loss to Jelena Dokic was not the continuation of a trend.

Till the French Open doubles final, the Swiss teenager had won a title of some kind at every Grand Slam dating back to the 1997 French Open.

Hingis not only lost in the Wimbledon singles, but also pulled out of the doubles.

Hingis and Anna Kournikova lost the French doubles final in Paris early this month to Venus and Serena Williams.

DPA