Boris Becker was 17 when he lit up Wimbledon for the first time, 34 years ago, and he cannot wait for a teenager to win the men’s title again. Indeed he is frustrated that no young star has broken the hold the ageing big three have on the majors.
Looking ahead to the 2019 tournament, which starts on 1 July, Becker said on Monday night: “We are surrounded by [potential] teenage grand slam champions. In any other sport people get younger. For some reason in tennis everybody takes a lot longer to be successful. And that has nothing to do with forehands and backhands. I am convinced it will happen. It should happen. This would be the only sport where it didn’t happen.”
When the 33-year-old Rafael Nadal ground down 25-year-old Dominic Thiem for the second year in a row to win the French Open on Sunday, he ensured that ownership of the past 10 majors stayed with the big three: himself, Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic. Between them they have won 53 grand slam events. It was also the 11th major in a row won by a player 30 or older.
As Becker observed: “I was just reading a stat that no active player outside the big three under 28, apart from Thiem [and Milos Raonic], has been in a grand slam final. That is not good. That is not a compliment for anybody under 28. And don’t give me that the others are too good. We should question the quality and the attitude of everybody under 28. It just doesn’t make sense.
“As much as I respect Roger, Rafa and Novak, young players should show up. Give me something I want to talk about. Eventually they [big three] will be too old. But you want to see the passing of the torch while they are still in their prime. You want to see Stefanos [Tsitsipas] and Dominic beating them when they are still very, very good.
“There’s a certain mentality that they [younger players] don’t have, that the three others do have. It’s not the forehands. It’s not the fitness. It’s mind-set, attitude that makes the difference between winning and losing.”
Becker created the template. Two weeks after winning Queen’s in 1985 he confirmed that his precocious talent had substance when he beat Kevin Curren in four sets on a sun-dappled Centre Court at the All England Club to become the first unseeded winner of the most famous prize in tennis, as well as the first German.
Nobody that young had won a men’s grand slam title – although Michael Chang would take his record four years later at Roland Garros – and when Becker overwhelmed Ivan Lendl in straight sets to keep his Wimbledon title in 1986, it looked as if he would be the king of grass for as long as he wanted. It did not exactly work out that way, because of contractual and injury interruptions, and his private life has been seriously complicated. Back then, though, everything seemed so easy and simple to him.
It was never straightforward for John McEnroe, who is nine years older than Becker and was 22 when he won the first of his three Wimbledon titles in 1981, two years after breaking through at Flushing Meadows. Loud and defiantly brattish back then, he has mellowed into the éminence grise of the commentary box, a little quieter but still opinionated. “I have been waiting a long time [for a young male player to win Wimbledon],” he says. “It’s as close as it’s ever been. I would think at Wimbledon it would be more likely [than at the other majors].”
He name-checks Tsitsipas – “he would seem to be a likely candidate to make the transition [from clay to grass] immediately” – as well as the Canadian Denis Shapovalov – “who has struggled on the clay and might lack confidence” – and the Russian Karen Khachanov, who he thought would have “made more inroads by now”. He added: “A guy like [Daniil] Medvedev, maybe all of a sudden the pressure is on him [to win].”
McEnroe says there is another teenager who has the tools to make it: “Félix Auger-Aliassime has the attitude you need to be the best in the world. Stefanos has that attitude. He is the closest right now. [Alexander] Zverev? He has been the front runner for a while but it seems he hasn’t rounded his game off enough. When the pressure ramps up at the big ones, he gets a little passive. He psyches himself out. The pressure so far has got to him.”
All tough judgments but, as Nadal proved in Paris on Sunday, nobody yet seems equal to the challenge.