9101270139
DETROIT FREE PRESS
910708
Monday, July 08, 1991
METRO FINAL
1C
Photo Color DENIS PAQUIN Associated Press
:
Boris Becker yells at his racket while trying to fight back
from his struggles in the men's final.
MITCH ALBOM
Copyright (c) 1991, Detroit Free Press
ALAS, POOR BORIS, LOSING MAKES FOR MUCH MISERY
WIMBLEDON, England -- Well, here's one good thing about unknown Michael
Stich winning the Wimbledon championship Sunday: It put Boris Becker out of
his misery. The way Boris was suffering all day, screaming at himself, hiding
beneath a towel, making faces like a kid who just tasted liver for the first
time, I thought he might run to the top of the stadium and throw himself off.
"Will someone teach me how to play this game!" Boris screamed in German.
And also:
"What is wrong with me?"
"Why can't I hit over the net!"
"Nothing! I have nothing!"
Never in the history of my tennis watching have I seen a more melancholy
loser. I felt like giving him some roses to stop and smell, or at least a
straitjacket, so he wouldn't hurt himself. Becker, whom I greatly admire
because he is a humble, intelligent, thoughtful sports star -- in other words,
a complete oddity -- has become the Hamlet of tennis, full of riches and
princely fame, yet cursed with doubt and introspection. He almost quit the
game last year, saying the fire inside had died. Sunday, he almost became the
first player ever fined for self-abuse.
"At this moment, I feel very old," he sighed after losing in straight sets
to Stich.
Becker, of course, is 23.
More on this in a moment. First, to the champion. What a Stich!
Ba-dum-bump. A Stich In Time! Ba-dum-bump. Stich and Stones Will Break Your
Bones! Ba-dump-bump.
There. That gets the stupid headlines out of the way. Now. Who is this guy?
Never been in a Grand Slam Final before? No. 750 in the world two years ago?
Likes the Bill Cosby show? All that is true. So is this: In the mid-80s,
Stich was a student with no plans to become a pro athlete. One day, he sat in
his house in Hamburg and watched countryman Becker win his first Wimbledon at
17.
"Hmm," thought Stich, 16 at the time, "that looks neat."
Try it. You'll like it.
And on Sunday he did, shooting down Becker the way a bazooka shoots down a
pigeon. And Becker is his friend!
Obviously, what we have here is a late bloomer. Never mind that the scores
were close -- 6-4, 7-6 (7-4), 6-4. Stich, 22, was in control every moment of
this match. His serve was a Nolan Ryan fastball, a Wayne Gretzky slap shot,
there was no dealing with it. Becker could not handle Stich's first serve, he
could not handle his second serve, if there was such a thing as a third serve
it would have eluded Becker as well.
This, if you know tennis, is the ultimate weapon for grass court tennis; a
big serve. Maybe that's why there are almost no grass court tournaments
anymore. Who wants to watch cannon fire?
But Wimbledon, ah, Wimbledon. It has always rewarded power. And Stich, with
a serve that clocked 126 m.p.h., had power to spare. '=Now I know what people
mean when they say they have a special feeling playing on Centre Court,"
Stich, a tall, dark- haired German, said after his historic win, only the
seventh man to win a Wimbledon final in his first try. "I felt like I could
get to every ball today."
Well, not every ball. There were all those moon balls and rotten ricochets
that kept caroming off Becker's racket. Stich didn't have to get those; they
were all out. Way out. In fact, more than half the balls Stich served Sunday,
Becker could not return: 51 out of 100. More than half? Goodness. That racket
should be in a cage.
"There was no pressure on me today," Stich said. "I read the papers and
saw how everyone was picking Boris to win, just as everyone was picking Stefan
(Edberg) to win before. I said to myself, 'Fine, I'll just go out and play.'
"To be honest, I had nothing to lose. And Boris, I think, felt like he had
to win."
Stich beat Edberg, the defending Wimbledon champion, in the semifinals.
Boris. Yes. Let's get back to him. He didn't exactly have a great time
at the old tennis yard this tournament. For one thing, his matches kept
getting put on last, and then it would rain, and he would have to come back
the next day to finish. He wound up playing seven matches in 10 days,
including three straight on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. That's one weary
cowboy.
On top of that, there was an undercurrent of jealousy that somehow, Andre
Agassi was stealing Becker's thunder. Agassi wasn't even on the roster when
Boris was winning his three championships here, yet Mr. Hairy Belly Button
seemed to get top placement, in the headlines and on the courts. "It all took
its toll," Becker moaned.
That was obvious from the first game Sunday, which Stich won, breaking
Becker's serve, and it carried to the final point, Stich whipping a forehand
return past his downcast buddy. "Sometimes you have to wait until after for a
defeat to hit you," Boris said. "This time, it hit me during the match. I knew
if he was not going to make big mistakes today, then I'm not going to win,
because I did not have it.'
He sighed. This is not new. In 1989, Becker thought about quitting tennis
altogether. He wondered about the meaning of life. He wrote for hours in his
personal journal. He tried to broaden his interests, which have always
extended beyond tennis. He pledged more money to charity. There are reports
that all his winnings here will go to Greenpeace, the environmental group.
"What can Michael Stich expect now that he is Wimbledon champion?" someone
asked Becker.
"It's a high cost," he warned. "His life will change. Everything changes.
He will realize it in a couple of years and then he'll have to deal with it.
Not everything that glitters is gold.
"If I were giving him advice, I would say remember that it's only a tennis
match. He shouldn't believe that he's on top of the world. He'll feel like it.
He feels it now, he's flying around the room now. But in a few weeks, when he
lands, he should remember it's only a tennis match."
Gosh. I feel so depressed. Get me some Kleenex, will you?
But such is the frame of mind of the ex-champion. Maybe it's how Germany
treats its sports stars. Steffi Graf had the same pained, weight-of-the-world
look this tournament, and when she won Saturday, she said, "I needed to win
this, for me." It doesn't help that Becker and Graf are mobbed wherever they
go, front page news nearly every day. Who knows? Maybe Stich is getting the
same treatment today.
Whatever. After Sunday's soliloquies, I don't see Becker hanging around
this game very long. Not without a lithium prescription.
"It gets tougher every year for me. Especially at the beginning of the
tournament. It's not the same as it was when you are 17 or 18. Then it's still
the biggest thrill of your life, being at Wimbledon. Now it's not anymore."
"Boris," a German reporter asked, "did you bring a suit for the Champions
Dinner tonight, in case you'd won?"
Becker whispered. "I don't think it fits so well anymore."
And he left, the Hamlet of tennis -- a guy who's won three Wimbledons in
six years -- off to find a better corner of the sky.
Hey, Stich. See what you have to look forward to?
1991 Wimbledon champions
MEN'S SINGLES
Michael Stich (6) def. Boris Becker (2), 6-4, 7-6 (7-4), 6-4.
MEN'S DOUBLES
John Fitzgerald and Anders Jarryd (2) def. Javier Frana and Leonardo Lavalle,
6-3, 6-4, 6-7 (7-9), 6-1.
WOMEN'S SINGLES
Steffi Graf (1) def. Gabriela Sabatini (2), 6-4, 3-6, 8-6.
WOMEN'S DOUBLES
Larisa Savchenko and Natalia Zvereva (2) def. Gigi Fernandez and Jana Novotna
(1), 6-4, 3-6, 6-4.
MIXED DOUBLES
John Fitzgerald and Elizabeth Smylie def. Jim Pugh and Natalia Zvereva, 7-6
(7-4), 6-2.
TENNIS; TOURNAMENT