Commentary/ Dilip D'Souza
Shed A Tear For Tennis
I don't think I will ever forget that point. Lendl -- poor, hard-working, mechanical Lendl -- hits one of his screaming forehands. At the net, Becker
-- youthful, bounding, full-of-life Becker -- dives to his left for the
backhand volley. The ball hits the top of the net and balloons over a
Becker horizontal in mid-air, freeze-framed in my mind forever. It lands
behind him as he falls to the ground and rolls over. But this 18-year-old
has the astonishing presence of mind, while still on the grass, to reach
out and tap the ball over the net, well out of Lendl's reach.
Boris gets up and does the fist-clenched war dance he made famous: just
another spectacular winner from that marvellous tennis talent. But you just
knew that one moment, that one shot, must have told Lendl he would never
win Wimbledon. Not when there was this German man -- this German kid --
across the net from him. Lendl stood there in disbelief, turned slowly to
go back to the baseline. The heavy meaning of that one point must have
broken his heart. Right there, right then.
For me, that little episode from the 1986 Wimbledon final defined Boris
Becker. Others had dived for shots on that lush green grass before; others
had played incandescent tennis -- McEnroe comes to mind -- on it before.
But there had been nobody who had quite the same combination of exuberance,
talent, power and the will to be champion that Becker blazed through the
tennis world with, in those heady summers of the mid-80s.
It is hard to imagine Wimbledon without him. Indeed, it is hard to imagine
tennis without him.
Today, Pete Sampras is unarguably the dominant force in men's tennis.
Watching him rack up the Wimbledon titles, sure he will certainly win a few
more, I remember 1989. Still just 21, Becker won his third Wimbledon title
that July and went on to beat Lendl at the US Open two months later. He
was the dominant tennis force then, just as much as Sampras is today. I
remember thinking to myself at the time: What's to prevent this man from
winning several more Wimbledons? Who can stay with him when he's at his
best, as he was that year?
Who would have thought then that Boris would never win Wimbledon again?
That little bit of history, in its own way, also defined Boris Becker for
me. Having reached the pinnacle he did that year, Boris seemed to lose the
fire that propelled him there. While he has stayed near the pinnacle in the
eight years since, even winning two Australian Opens along the way, he
never quite found that fire again. Over the last few years, it's been
increasingly clear that Boris would not win the tournament he loved, the
one that made him -- Wimbledon. What's more, I think he knew it: no fire,
no Wimbledon. This year, he simply made it official. After losing to
Sampras in a quarterfinal that -- let's face it -- he never looked likely
to win, he announced he would not play at Wimbledon again. And all over the
world, hearts must have broken, just as surely as Lendl's did after that
magnificent point in 1986.
The truth is, the very innovation that Boris brought to tennis is now
passing him by. He was the first true power player. In 1985, his booming
serve and thundering strokes were things to marvel at. Today, they are no
more than routine. He still has his power, but every up-and-coming player
hits as hard, many harder. Boris no longer has the edge his power gave him
a decade ago.
Power is OK, and may it be conferred on every tennis upstart. But for me,
an occasional visitor to the courts, what's sad about not having Becker to
watch any more is that he is the last of a vanishing breed: the top-class
serve-and-volleyer, playing tennis as God intended. These are tennis's
restless thinkers, relentlessly attacking players, constantly searching for
ways to get up to the net and knock off a firm volley. You can almost see
that desire hang from each shot they play. There are some stellar names
there: Laver, Newcombe, McEnroe, Cash, Edberg.
Of them, McEnroe was the supremely unpredictable genius; Edberg all
smooth-as-silk elegance, gliding effortlessly around the court. And Becker
added his own dimension: power mixed with that infectious exuberance. Today
Sampras, the best player in the world, is also a fine volleyer. But even he
does not volley with the sure instinct of Becker and his greatest rival,
Stefan Edberg, at their best.
That's why Wimbledon's Stefan and Boris show that ran from 1988 to 1990 --
three successive finals between these two champions -- were, for this
occasional tennis player, tennis drama done to perfection. There have not
been finals like that since, arguably ever.
Edberg, with his gazelle-like grace, matched against Becker's muscular
athleticism. The world's two finest tennis players, both vying to be first
to the net, using every square inch of that so-green grass, pulling off
shots that belonged in a tennis heaven somewhere. There's disgruntled talk
these days when two big servers square off, about how it's so boring
because there are no rallies. But in those three matches, these two great
servers showed that they could play simply fascinating tennis.
On paper, it looked like a no-contest. In 1989, it even turned out that
way. An inspired, awe-inspiring, Becker simply dusted Edberg off the court.
Even one-sided as it was, it made compelling watching. But the two slices
of this delicious sandwich -- the 1988 and 1990 finals -- were tight, tense
contests. Against expectations, Edberg won both.
The 1990 final had everything. Playing in some dream-like realm, Stefan
ripped through the first two sets, 6-2, 6-2. His brilliance made Boris look
as if he was lumbering around on court, not yet fully awake. But his
predicament spurred Becker into his best form just when it looked like he
would lose tamely. It was now his turn to make Stefan seem a step slow: a
flawless, rampaging Boris won the next two sets 6-3, 6-3. When Edberg
served two spectacularly inept double-faults to trail 1-3 in the final set,
those first two sets really did seem like a dream.
But, once more when it seemed surely lost, the match turned. Stefan forced
his way back with some superb volleys, including a memorable one off his
toes in the final game. Becker's return soared wide on the last point and
Edberg had won. But the two had pushed each other to heights where winning
and losing seemed almost incidental. That was their tribute to each other.
With Edberg already gone and Becker now looking squarely at the end of his
playing days, there will soon be no top-flight player left who plays in
quite the same way. Serve-and-volley is tennis's spluttering old man, a
dying art. The new kids on the courts stay on the baseline, thumping their
strokes with admirable power, precision and dullness. They've worked hard
at their game, but it is really tennis the easy way that they play:
one-dimensional and unimaginative.
They singularly lack the constant, restless, creative thinking that made
Becker such a great champion. Tennis has been left to the plodders. And
what a tragedy that is.
Tell us what you think of this column
|