FORGET the tennis, what everybody wants to talk about with the players here is the football. If you're European you're expected to have an opinion on it and if your match was uneventful then you'd better be able to hold your own on Venables' defensive dilemma and Vogts' attacking absentees because that's what the re boys want to hear about just now.

Defending champion Steffi Graf, got the treatment yesterday and put up with it in much the same way as those that had gone before her, with a generous helping of bemusement.

From her point of view, of course, it's a lot better than being called on to dwell yet again on the growing list on difficulties she must battle to overcome just to get out there on court.

Foremost amongst those concerns, of course, is her father's current imprisonment while awaiting trial on charges of tax fraud but the 27 year old German has been coping with that for some time while of more immediate concern of late has been a knee injury sustained in a Prague exhibition recently which forced her to pull out of Eastbourne.

The upshot was that she looked more than a little rusty for her first competitive outing on the Wimbledon grass yesterday a fact quickly shown up by 19 year old Ludmila Richterova who showed tremendous spirit in take ing the match to the favourite's doorstep from very early on.

Bearing a striking resemblance to the world number one in physique the Czech, who has only once stayed on at a Grand Slam long enough to even start getting bored with the wallpaper in her hotel room, used her height and reach to good effect with a powerful serve, willingly followed to the net every time the opportunity arose.

In the opening games that was more often than might have been expected and in the sixth game the world number 75, who has beaten Conchita Martinez already this year, went close to breaking her opponent to go 4-2 ahead.

It took a couple of deuces but the German put the scare behind her and in the next game a long volley by Richterova, at 30 all followed by a superb winning forehand return of her second serve gave Graf the breakthrough she had been waiting for.

From that point on the top seed steadily gathered momentum breaking her oppenent's last real show of spirit in the 10th game in which she cashed in her third set point and repeatedly leaving the athletic teenager rooted to the spot with fine passing shots off both forehand and backhand during a second sets which she took to one game after just 18 minutes on court.

On Tuesday her compatriot Boris Becker had said that he had gone to Queen's because the strength of the men's draw meant that it was no longer possible for the leading stars to play themselves into an event like Wimbledon. That, however, is clearly what Graf started to do yesterday and barring a complete disaster against Italy's Nathalie Baudone in the second round, she should have completely adjusted to the surface by the time she comes up against an opponent better equipped to follow through on a strong start against the world's top player.

"I'm lacking match play, that is why it took me a while to get into the match and the injury is not helped by the surface because on grass you have to stay low, you're constantly on your knees but I am happy," a relaxed Graf said afterwards. "Usually I need a week on grass and I have been on it for three days now so we shall see."

Just about all of the other seeds are happy too for, with the exception of Chanda Rubin, who had a reoccurrence of a wrist injury she picked up in April, every one of the 16 made it through to the second round.

In fact, just one set was conceded between the lot of them and yesterday the likes of Jana Novotna, Arantxa Sanchez Vicario and Mary Joe Fernandez all coasting through to the last 64 of these championships.