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.

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