Boris Becker Doubles Up on U.S. as West Germany Has a 2-1 Lead

Without Boris Becker, West Germany’s Davis Cup tennis team would be three guys named Larry, Moe and Curly. With Becker, it’s a team nobody can call stupid.

Call it Boris and the Boys, or call it an awesome sight to behold.

The U.S. Davis Cup team watched and beheld here Saturday. And after all was done, they may have pretty well called it a year in Davis Cup tennis.

If that turns out to be the case, and things go according to form in today’s two singles matches, the cause of the U.S. demise can be attributed to Becker. And the accounts of what happened here, and the superlatives for this player who is still five months from his 22nd birthday, may carry on for some time.

Saturday was Boris Becker’s day in Munich. No others need to apply.

First, Becker completed his match against Andre Agassi with a 6-4 victory in a postponed fifth set, bringing West Germany to a 1-1 tie in this semifinal Davis Cup test. Then, he teamed with Eric Jelen to beat Ken Flach and Robert Seguso in doubles, 3-6, 7-6 (7-5), 6-4, 7-6 (7-3), to make it 2-1 going into today’s matches in the best-of-five competition.

In those matches, Agassi will open against Carl-Uwe Steeb and Becker will face Brad Gilbert in the finale.

For Becker Friday night and Saturday, it wasn’t so much what he did and how he did it. More so, it wasn’t so much that he was successful as it was that he did what he did under extreme pressure.

West Germany’s expectations of Becker are not those placed on mere mortals.

When he plays tennis, he’s expected to win. When he meets the media, he’s expected to be charming, witty and insightful. When people seek his autograph, he’s expected to sign. And when children are around, he is expected to be happy and positive to set an example.

There are no other possibilities, no other thoughts. When he plays, it is something special. Often, the president of the country shows up, as he did here Saturday.

“When you are in Munich, you are playing in a Davis Cup semifinals, it is so much more than even a Davis Cup semifinal for the people in this country,” Becker said. “What exactly it is, I’m still trying to figure out.”

This is the same Becker who told a reporter a few years ago that, when he came home after winning his first Wimbledon title, went out to practice a few days later, was stunned to find thousands of his countrymen there to watch him.

“It was like they worshipped me,” he said at the time. “I was a little bit frightened.”

Worship him they do, and in so many ways, whether he wants it or not, he continually earns it.

This Davis Cup match against the United States is a prime example. Just a few weeks ago, Becker won his third Wimbledon title. That effort had been preceded by a hectic schedule and, by his own admission, he was exhausted both mentally and physically.

Or, to give it perspective, he was in the same condition as Americans Michael Chang and Tim Mayotte, who turned down invitations to play here because of exhaustion and schedule conflicts.

Becker’s mental and physical exhaustion must have taken on new proportions somewhere in the late hours of Friday evening, when he found himself down, two sets to love, and his opponent, a fresh, young Agassi, serving for the match at 6-5.

But somewhere, somehow--possibly from a German crowd that refused to believe he could lose and pumped him full of adrenaline--Becker reached deeper, saved the set and finished the match Saturday afternoon

Then he quickly followed that with a doubles victory over a U.S. team that had not lost a Davis Cup match in 10 previous tries and had been a foregone conclusion as a winner.

Becker called all this “an exhausting day at the office.” Others had higher praise.

Jelen, his doubles partner, said the Becker-Agassi match was “the best I’ve ever seen, any time, anywhere.”

Flach said that “Boris is Boris, and I don’t think that will change for a while.”

Seguso said that he thought all three other doubles players--he, Flach and Jelen--took the court “drained from watching Becker and Agassi. I felt like I had just played five sets myself.”

And Agassi, who handled himself with poise and character throughout, who played perhaps the best tennis of his life and jumped the net to share a congratulatory hug with Becker when their marathon ended 4 hours 26 minutes after it had begun, said, “This was the first time I’ve ever done anything like that, but after something like that match, when you pour your heart and guts into it, you just feel such great emotion.”

It is likely that Gilbert, the American player who holds the last U.S. hope for a spot in the Davis cup final against the winner of the Yugoslavia-Sweden match, probably has some emotions of his own. Most likely, when he takes the court here today, the score will be 2-2, assuming Agassi defeats Steeb. And across the court from him will be Becker. Gilbert is rated 14th in the world, Becker No. 2. But at the moment, there appears to be much more than 12 spots on a computer rating separating the two.

Say, perhaps, a million miles.

Gilbert has beaten Becker three out of four times but Becker’s answer to that Saturday, was merely, “That happened because I was two years younger.”

There was also much talk by Gilbert’s teammates Saturday about how Gilbert is a wily veteran, about how he drives Becker crazy by giving him no pace, about how he is a fighter and a scrapper and how he leads the world in winning ugly. But in the end, it wasn’t certain that even they could make themselves believe.

As Flach said, “Miracles do happen.”

It would seem, however, that all the miracles allotted to this Davis Cup have been used by Becker. But then, for him, nothing less is expected.

Davis Cup Notes

Andre Agassi’s loss to Boris Becker marked his fifth loss in five-set matches in as many tries. . . . Ken Flach and Robert Seguso, despite playing well below their level, still only lost serve once in the match. But they also broke serve only once. Flach lost his serve at 4-4 in the third set and Becker was broken in the second game of the match. Eric Jelen, not known as one of the big servers in tennis, was on the ropes frequently but never lost his serve. . . . The end of the Flach-Seguso streak may mark the beginning of a new Davis Cup doubles team for the United States, Rick Leach and Jim Pugh. The Californians are currently considered the top doubles team in the country, if not the world . . . Becker’s last three points in his victory over Agassi were forehand bullets over Agassi’s high-kicking serve. “If he were serving to me like I was serving to him, I’d have done the same thing,” Agassi said . . . Becker apparently has started a post-match tradition, at least post-big match. When he won at Wimbledon this year, he sent his racquet into the crowd with a discus toss. Saturday, after beating Agassi, he did it again. Veteran observers said that he got less height but more distance this time . . . Flach, asked after the disappointing defeat if he missed having the injured John McEnroe, replied, “No, I miss my mother.”