Becker on Murray, fame and fancy dress
30 YEARS ON FROM HIS FIRST WIMBLEDON WIN, BORIS BECKER REVEALS HIS SECRETS
I never felt comfortable representing Germany
DOING s omething extraordinary like winning Wimbledon at 17 could drive anyone to distraction — it certainly did with Boris Becker.
Overnight global fame for the distinctive looking German quickly became such a burden, t he constant attention so suffocating, that he took to walking around in heavy disguise.
Thirty years on from first winning at the All England Club (below) Becker — sitting in a central London office in a pinstripe suit — is guffawing at the memory of his desperate attempts to become anonymous in the months that followed.
‘I went into this fancy dress shop in Munich. I wanted to try it out and see what it would be like again not to be recognised,’ he says.
‘I bought the wig, this thing with long black curly hair. I would wear it in Munich and Monte Carlo and I could have these couple of hours in the day when nobody would recognise me, it was so liberating, I felt free again.
‘But then I was walking in the English Garden in Munich enjoying this freedom and some people recognised me because of my walk.
‘I said to them, “How did you recognise me?” and they said, “You walk very particular” and I thought, “Oh no, I’ve got to change the way I walk now”.’
It is hard to overstate just how famous Becker was in his native l and i n the l ate Eighties and Nineties.
People would camp outside his hotel when he was playing tournaments at home to catch a glimpse of the young superstar, TV rights for tennis once became as valuable as football, mostly on the back of his achievements.
He was not only a ridiculously talented young athlete, but an emblem — whether he liked it or not — of the new Germany establishing its place in the modern world.
Small wonder t hat in t he subsequent years he sometimes struggled to stay on the level in his private and financial affairs, but 30 years on he gives the impression of having f ound his equilibrium.
Not that he has gone bland.
He has a new book out t o mark t he anniversary and, while it looks like a coffee - table adornment, the text goes beyond that.
For instance, on the current game, he con- firms what many in the sport know, that his current coaching charge Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer ‘don’t particularly like each other’ while having a mutual respect.
He describes Andy Murray as ‘honest, but in a negative way. I’ve never seen a guy — not even John McEnroe — who commentates on every s i ngle point t he way Murray does. It’s mindboggling how much he speaks to himself during a match.’
Becker says some of the reaction he received when Djokovic appointed him as coach at the start of last year was ‘insulting’.
Perhaps partly due to his somewhat idiosyncratic style of BBC TV commentary, there was widespread scepticism about it.
Indeed, being a man — and therefore critics feeling less constrained — it went well past any adverse comment Amelie Mauresmo is supposed to have suffered after Murray hired her.
Becker i s phlegmatic enough about i t and c an point to Djokovic’s huge lead at the top of the rankings.
‘Yes there was a point to prove. On the other hand I’m very good at what I do. I am comfortable with Novak and what we’ve done.’
Now 47, Bec ke r is long accustomed to the slings and arrows of public opinion. He arrived at Wimbledon ’ 85 having won the main warm-up at Queen’s Club but was not expected to replicate that success over two weeks.
He reveals that his triumph almost never happened at all, after he fell and twisted his ankle during the fourth set of his fourth-round clash with American stalwart Tim Mayotte.
‘I was on the baseline, desperate and in pain and going to limp towards the net to shake hands. Tim was on the baseline, too. I had badly twisted i t, but i n those seconds Tiriac and Bosch (Ion and Gunther, his manag e r and coach) s t arted screaming, “Take a time out!” ‘I thought there was no point but I got my senses back and asked the umpire, so I carried on. History could have changed.’ Wimbledon was a very different place in those days
— for instance, metal rackets were still relatively new and many will forget there was football- style terracing along the sides of the Centre Court.
It was in a feverish atmosphere that — too unaware to be nervous in the final — he beat an anxious Kevin Curren of South Africa, 10 years his senior, over four sets.
People marvelled at the power of ‘Boom Boom’.
‘It was almost a football type atmosphere on that Sunday afternoon. It’s interesting, people talk about the power game but most players now aren’t serving as big as they were. I was serving nearly 240kph (149mph) at 17. Of course the rackets helped, but I wasn’t the only one using them.’
Although not fully alive to it at the time, Becker always had an introspective aspect to hi s character.
Within a few days, when going on an open top parade of his hometown of Leimen, he was recognising his new status had a downside.
‘I was prepared for it all in the tennis sense but not otherwise. It didn’t really impress my parents, all the glamour. My father was an architect, my mother worked in his office. My sister was studying, we were a normal family.
‘Four days on, my father organised the parade, he felt he should, but my mother didn’t like it and I wasn’t comfortable with it.
‘I think I was always a reflective person and by my mid-twenties it made the second half of my career more difficult.
‘I knew I was a good player and had more to win, but part of me was thinking: “why am I still doing this? It’s time to move on to the next thing.” ’
Added to all this was his status as an unofficial German symbol. Interestingly, Djokovic now takes on a similar mantle for Serbia as it recovers from a troubled past, although he embraces the idea far more.
‘ I did f eel t he pressure to represent Germany and I never felt comfortable in that role — being an ambassador. I was a tennis player from West Germany playing around the world and I f ound myself respected, it didn’t matter whether I was German or not. But of course I was very aware of it.’
His reputation as an exceptionally mature young man only increased when he finally lost at Wimbledon after winning two titles, in 1987 to Australian Peter Doohan. In his post-match interview he said, coolly: ‘I’ve lost a tennis match, I haven’t lost a war — nobody was killed.’ It resonated hugely at the time. ‘I was surprised by the impact. Nobody died, that was the truth. I’d played badly and that’s all it was.’
Becker was to go on and win six majors in a glittering career, but his physical style took its toll. Last year he needed surgery on both hips and he now has a limp due to ankle problems.
‘I have what (footballer) Marco Van Basten has, I have two bones fused so it’s never going to be like it was. If I travel a lot I have good and bad days, but if I get regular treatment it’s better.
‘We didn’t have the shoes and supports in those days they have now. They’ve told me it’s the wear and tear. It’s a price I’ve had to pay for the playing the way I did.’
He has lived in Wimbledon a long time, now with his second wife Lilly and their son Amadeus, and they are ‘contemplating’ applying for citizenship.
I ask him if the reason is to be close to the place which has defined hi m, where he achieved so much, because it has a reassuring pull after a sometimes turbulent life which has seen brushes with broom cupboards and financial bust, along with the glory.
‘You are interpreting it too much,’ he replies. ‘ I can’t deny my association with it, but if my wife didn’t like it I couldn’t live there. She fell in love with the place. It’s somewhere I’m very comfortable and I know very well. I left home at 15, I’ve been there more than any other place in the world, more than where I grew up.’
More prosaically, it also means he can walk to work during the whole period of the big fortnight, which this year is beautifully set up after the events of Paris.
World No 1 Djokovic arrives next week to practise after losing the French final, which Becker partly puts down to the resistance of Murray in their epic semi.
‘In many ways that was the final, five sets over two days,’ he said.
‘ Novak played Nadal i n the quarters, which had huge hype and then he had to play someone even better.
‘He had lost that extra 10 per cent you need in the final.’
Even McEnroe didn’t question himself as much as Murray does