Friday April 30th 2021
Back then on the sand in Monte Carlo
The “worst defeat” for Boris Becker
Boris Becker has won almost everything in his tennis career. But never a tournament on clay. On April 30, 1995, he was closer than ever to this success – and, according to his own statement, experienced the worst defeat of his career. Which is then followed by $ 20,000.
Boris Becker has won a lot in his career: 49 tournaments, including three times at Wimbledon, twice the Australian and once the US Open. But he has often lost – and that’s part of life as a professional tennis player. His “worst defeat”, as Becker later called it, despite the bankruptcy in the 1991 Wimbledon final against Michael Stich, he conceded on April 30, 1995 in the Monte Carlo final. On the unloved ash place.
Becker had two match balls at the time, two chances for the first sand win of his successful career. And if the tennis gods had been on his side at the time, if his brutally risky second serve had flown into the field only a few centimeters earlier, then Becker would not have had to live with this flaw, which he could no longer compensate for by the end of his career in 1999: Among the 49 There is no tournament victory on clay.
Back then in the Principality, Becker was closer than ever before and never since. The first two sets against the Austrian Thomas Muster, at that time the outstanding player on clay, Becker won 6: 4, 7: 5. Muster was weakened from his semi-final against Andrea Gaudenzi from Italy, after which he had to be treated in hospital, but he was a fighter and Becker was his final opponent that day. Attaching was out of the question for samples.
It went in set four and there in the tiebreak. At 6: 4, Becker had match point on his own serve and narrowly missed his target. Muster got the set and finally – with 6-0 in the fifth – also the match, which annoyed Becker so much that he at least indirectly got involved in doping allegations. The ATP punished him for this with a fine of 20,000 US dollars, which Becker could probably get over at the time – unlike the missed chance.
Becker would really have liked to have won a clay court title, and in retrospect he wasn’t as bad as it seems. He was three times in the semifinals of the French Open, three times in the finals in Monte Carlo, and in Rome and Hamburg he was only missing one victory to triumph. He succeeded in doubles on clay alongside Michael Stich: in 1992 the German duo won gold at the Olympic Games in Barcelona.
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