Boris Becker's Wimbledon by Boris Becker

Author:Boris Becker [Неизв.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3, mobi
ISBN: 9781910536353
Publisher: Blink Publishing
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

The 1990 final - I was a break up in the final set but got nervous and lost to Edberg.

In 1991 I was in such emotional turmoil that I don’t think I made much sense.

When the frustration subsided, all I could think of was ‘When can I catch him, when can I catch him? What do I have to do? I have to play again.’ That left me without the desire to have a holiday, so I worked through the off-season. But it backfired on me. With the first tournament of 1991 taking place in Adelaide, I went to Australia in early December to get used to the heat and prepare for 1991. I lost in the first round in Adelaide to Magnus Larson, 7-6 in the final set.

I was mentally finished. I said I couldn’t take any more, it was too much of a burden, and I seriously considered not playing the Australian Open. It was still another three weeks away, and it was so goddamn hot in Adelaide, 42 and 43 ?C in the shade, that I just couldn’t handle it. Bob Brett was still my coach, and he said ‘Look, you’re here now, why don’t you just give it a try? You’re in Melbourne now where it’s sunny, back home it’s snowy and rainy.’ So I decided to stay, but without any great conviction.

Then in the third round of the Australian Open I played an Italian, Omar Camporese, and beat him in well over five hours, 14-12 in the fifth. That’s when I was tested. I was the favourite, but throughout the match I was on an emotional roller coaster. The match was played on an outside court; we started at three, and finished about nine. It was the longest match at the Australian Open until recently, at five hours and 11 minutes. At the end I felt I’d gone through hell – but I had come through it, and I was ready now. I went on to win the Australian Open and, just as importantly, become No. 1 in the rankings for the first time.

For me that was the end of a long journey. All the anguish that had started with losing to Edberg in the Wimbledon final six months earlier, that had continued with my failure to catch him as the year-end No. 1, and the manic start to the year that almost came to a crushing halt in Adelaide – I had come through it all and achieved my aim of seeing my name at the top of the rankings. I’d like to have had the perspective I have now, to have smiled sweetly and accepted the congratulations, but I was already at the edge of my emotions.

I bounced around with delight after shaking Lendl’s and the umpire’s hand at the end of the match, but then I ran out of the stadium. I didn’t want to be part of the ceremony. I said to myself, ‘This is my win, I don’t want to celebrate it with anyone’, and I ran to the hotel.

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