Just unearthed from our archives: our 1986 Boris Becker feature
‘s manager. Immediately following the 17-year-old West German’s historic Wimbledon victory, Ion was heard to tell Becker, “Your life is over. You are born again with me.” In his spare time, Ion, whom Ilie Nastase calls a “tough guy,” eats shards of glass. Asked what kind of circumstances could provoke such dramatic displays, he says, “You use toothpaste? Toothpaste made from powder, powder made from sand, glass made from sand.
“Boris will not be able to talk to you tonight. He’ll be having something to eat, then he’s going to bed. Eleven o’clock tomorrow morning, O.K.?” End of terse message. Words are time and time is money. In the mid-’70s, Ion Tiriac’s will of steel helped shape Vilas into the giant-slayer who won 50 straight matches and 15 titles in 1977 and became the No. 1 player in the world. They extended their collaboration to the ownership of five tennis clubs and “the Becker acquisition”—Vilas put up half of the $250,000 Tiriac paid Becker to sign the West German athlete nearly two years ago.
“I cannot walk on the streets, it doesn’t matter if it’s Munich, Hamburg, or Leimen [his hometown],” says Becker. “If I go out, I wear disguises in Germany. I’m living in the world now, and it’s hard sometimes for my parents to understand what’s going on. I’m 10 months on tour, and they see me like two months. In the beginning they say, ‘O.K., for sure,’ but they didn’t realize it was the reality. It’s still tough on them, but slowly, slowly they get used to it. It’s not too bad in the U.S.
The intense publicity may have gotten in Boris’ way during the U.S. Open. The draw produced the likelihood of a McEnroe-Becker face-off in the quarterfinals, and as the tournament progressed and both players kept winning, the pressure and anticipation built. Before the outcome of the fourth round, CBS, assuming the champs would meet, preempted its programming for the night of the anticipated match to televise it nationally.
But Tiriac concedes nothing in answering questions about Becker’s readiness to face McEnroe in a tournament. “Which McEnroe?” growls the riddle master. “The McEnroe who played in the Masters, the McEnroe who played in the U.S. Open, the McEnroe who played Wimbledon? Boris has a good chance to beat him. McEnroe, for one reason or another, up and down.”
There is a formula to the brain trust’s success. It is contained in “the program,” a plan for the development of the consummate tennis property to which Becker, Tiriac, and Bosch have dedicated themselves unconditionally. While the tennis prodigy says he is not materially motivated, months before his 18th birthday, Tiriac bought his protégé a Monte Carlo address.
Though he says he trusts Tiriac’s professional instincts totally, that wasn’t always the case. The first time Tiriac suggested Boris’s footwork on his serve was all wrong, Becker countered, “What the hell are you talking about? I have a very good serve.” Tiriac, who claims you have to proveto the skeptical athlete, drew illustrations of how, with different foot positioning, Becker could move forward faster.
Clearly, when Tiriac recently said, “Tennis is 80% head, 20% legs,” he wasn’t considering enrolling Boris in night classes at Heidelberg University. “At the end of ’84 when I won the Australian Open quarterfinals,” says Becker, “I was a bit shaky. I couldn’t feel the ground anymore. But then I lost a couple of times,” and he was reminded how fragile triumph-induced euphoria can be. It’s that same volatility that Becker says excites him about the game. All the champs lost the U.S. Open this year: Martina, McEnroe, Chrissie, Becker.
He says his ultimate fantasy is “having a relationship with my children not like father and son—like friends. I always wanted to be proud of my father, but after Wimbledon I wasn’t anymore, because I needed some help and I don’t have so many friends. I thought my parents were very good friends, but they made some mistakes.
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