BORIS BECKER
How I won Wimbledon at 17
BorIS BeCKer ponders for a second what it was like to win Wimbledon aged 17, and then conjures up an image: ‘It was like being the first man on Mars.’
Thirty-five years have passed since the ginger-haired teenager nicknamed ‘Boom Boom’ was blasted into space on a mission fraught with excitement and danger. The age of the tennis wunderkind was launched.
‘There was no story board for it,’ recalls Becker, sitting beside the rooftop court at the Thames-side apartment block which has been his home through the lockdown.
‘What happened has informed the rest of my life. I don’t think anyone could really understand what it was like.’
Life came fast and within a few months the pressure had begun to take a toll. He reveals that at the US open which followed he was grateful when he was knocked out of the fourth round.
‘I was on course to play John Mcenroe in the quarters and it was being built up like the Super Bowl,’ he says. ‘I was glad I lost because it was getting too much and I needed a rest.’
over the next fortnight’s phantom Wimbledon, Becker will pay some visits to the All england Club, where he will be a studio guest during several of the BBC shows scheduled to fill the void.
It is the place responsible for giving him a high enough profile to have the distinction of being instantly recognisable just by his first name — at least until another colourful Boris came along in the shape of the Prime Minister. ‘occasionally I see a headline with
Boris in it and wonder what have I been up to now?’ he smiles. ‘It’s not even a German name.’
As if winning Wimbledon at 17 was not extraordinary enough, it came with the added significance of him feeling responsible for promoting a good image of his re-emerging country.
one memory of that heady summer is feeling uncomfortable at the media associating his game with Blitzkrieg.
Among those who followed his progress avidly was man of the moment Jurgen Klopp, a lifelong tennis follower.
Becker soared to prominence when the game had never been more sexy, perhaps even more so than in this era of rafael Nadal, roger Federer and Novak Djokovic.
There are parallels with 1985 because another great threesome who had driven the sport forward were at the back end of their powers: Mcenroe, Bjorn Borg and Jimmy Connors (in Borg’s case retired already).
Nightclubs were still frequented and players all stayed in central London during Wimbledon, rather than being billeted with their large entourages in private houses around SW19. For his stay in the capital that year, Becker was at the old Londonderry hotel in South Kensington, accompanied only by coach Gunther Bosch and his moustachioed manager Ion Tiriac, who drove him around in his Mercedes.
Becker had left school the previous summer, and not long given up his other preferred sports. His fast-improving results had propelled him towards the top 30 and he was increasingly talked about within the game, if not among the general public.
‘ Vijay Amritraj ( the Indian player) came up with Boom Boom, because he had not seen anyone hit the ball harder than me. I was always naturally strong and had done a lot of swimming when I was younger, played basketball and was at regional level in youth soccer,’ he says.
Power was only part of the story, as his vaunted serve was also the product of superb technique. He displays his Anglophilia in describing it. ‘Some of it was to do with how I could snap my wrist, a bit like a bowler in cricket. My serve and my other shots became very accurate, as well as heavy.’
Unseeded and largely unheralded, he scythed through a series of top grass-court players to win the preceding tournament at Queen’s, where he beat Johan Kriek in the final. Still, not everyone believed it when the South African predicted afterwards that this German teenager was going to win Wimbledon.
‘I wasn’t really aware that he had said that because my english was not so good at the time, but I do remember going to the All england Club to practise on the Tuesday, and that everyone was looking at me. It was the first time I noticed that other players were coming to see how I practised, and that made me feel good.’
He was ranked 20 for Wimbledon and still unseeded. While Kriek was later anointed with the wisdom of Solomon for his prophesy, Becker admits happily that he should never even have reached the Championships final, and that luck played its part.
‘ I played Joakim Nystrom in the third round on the old Court one. He twice served for the match but I ended up winning 9-7 in the fifth,’ he says.
‘Then I definitely should have lost against Tim Mayotte in the next round. In the middle of the fourth set I twisted my ankle badly, went down and panicked. I was going to give up but Tiriac and Bosch were screaming at me to call for the trainer to give me some time. ‘I was at the net but Tim was on the baseline. If he had been at the net, I would have shaken hands there and then. ‘I called for the trainer, who took 15 minutes to arrive because we were playing out on Court 16. He gave me a painkiller and some treatment. I won the tiebreak and survived.’ By now he had adopted the routine of eating at Princess Diana’s favourite restaurant, San Lorenzo in Knightsbridge, during the evenings. Always tomato and mozarella starter, followed by steak and pasta. In the semis he was losing to Sweden’s Anders Jarryd before rain interrupted the match in the evening. ‘We came back
‘It would’ve been better not to win in 1985. I was still virtually a child’
on Saturday lunchtime and suddenly Anders couldn’t put the ball in the court any more.’
the final was against Kevin Curren, the rangy South African. ‘Kevin had beaten Mcenroe and Connors in straight sets to get there, but a big thing was that he had most of friday and Saturday to think about his big chance. I was mentally helped by the fact I didn’t really have much time to think about the final.
‘On the Saturday night I dreamt vividly of holding the trophy over my head, so I woke up smiling. I wasn’t nervous but I could see Kevin was very itchy.’
Leading two sets to one, Becker broke and served for the match.
‘I only got nervous when I served for it. the crowd were screaming and I could hear them, which is a bad sign. You should be so focused you can shut it out. I was shaking and I double-faulted. then I had three big serves to get to 40-15 and the screams got louder and I double-faulted again. I prayed for one more first serve and won it with a three-quarter ace.’
After the initial joy, it did not take long for him to appreciate the magnitude of what had happened.
‘When I walked off the court the president of Germany, richard von Weizsacker, gave me a big hug. He was standing there with my parents. I realised this was more than just a tennis match.’
A second wave of understanding arrived the following weekend.
‘ We flew to Monaco on the Monday and the following day Ion sat me down and tried to explain to me how my life was going to change. I thought he was talking gibberish. It was only when I went back to my hometown of Leimen on the Saturday that I realised.
‘there are 10,000 people who live there but there were 50,000 lining the streets. We went to the tennis club and there was huge security. My friends couldn’t get near me.’
that year’s US Open apart, he broadly enjoyed the next two years of a career that was to see him claim six Grand Slam titles, reach four other major finals, and win 49 times on the tour in total.
‘When I look back, in many ways it would have been better if I had not won in 1985,’ he says. ‘As a player I would have ended up better, because after that the focus was all on winning rather than improving. If you have three years of build-up to your first big success, you get a grounding and round out your game.
‘Off the court I was still virtually a child when this was happening. You have to live in a bubble. It would have been better to wait for a lot of reasons. You become a goldfish in a tank and everyone is allowed to watch. It wasn’t a comfortable feeling. But you can’t choose the timing of these things.’
It was considered a seismic upset when, still only 19, he lost to Australian outsider Peter Doohan in 1987 (Becker beat Ivan Lendl in the 1986 final). even then his post-match interview won much admiration when he eloquently told the BBC’s Gerry Williams: ‘Basically I lost a tennis match. I didn’t lose a war, nobody died.’
He says now: ‘In 1987 it was starting to get to me. People were asking how many I would win in a row, comparing me to Borg. I felt it was getting out of hand and I didn’t want it to define my life. It was a relief after that.’
He acknowledges international fame and fortune brought with it many upsides. ‘It opened doors that I never knew existed.’
Some of them, undeniably, he should not have walked through. As has been well- chronicled, his financial affairs and his private life have often been complex and colourful. What he did not know at the time was that his first big title would spark a 35-year love affair with London, which is where he has based himself for most of the time since.
‘the reason I live in London is because of Wimbledon. It became my home. I had more privacy than I had in Germany, where even after 35 years there is still a story about me every week,’ he says.
‘there is a royal family here and not stories about me every day. I’ve always liked the multi-cultural vibe of London. I’ve always felt welcome and respected.
‘I can blend more into the crowd, which has not always been easy in my life.’