Boris Becker interviewed at NBA ALL Star

[guedoguedo]

Celeb Game, on espn now.

[guedoguedo]

He said that Sampras and Laver are/were better than Federer.

[vudal]

Becker is just jealous. He sucks compared to all of them

[austro]

Is there a transcript?

[Jet Rink]

Originally Posted by vudal

Becker is just jealous. He sucks compared to all of them

Way to go - a highly-educated post - and your tenth too. Big things await you Junior.



Jet

[spt]

saw Becker play on Tennis Classics against Agassi last week. It was a davis cup match from the 90's. Would love to see Boris compete against today's stars. He hit unbelievably hard off the ground and followed his serve in against one off the all time returning greats. Because of the pressure he kept putting on players, (except on clay) I believe he could consistently beat Nadal and most other players and give Federer all he wanted most days.

[Jet Rink]

Originally Posted by spt

saw Becker play on Tennis Classics against Agassi. It was a davis cup match from the 90's. Would love to see Boris compete against today's stars. He hit unbelievably hard of the ground and followed his serve in against on of the all time returniong greats. Because of the pressure he kept putting on players, (except on clay) I believe he would consistently beaten Nadal and most other players and given Federer all he wanted most days.

Agreed. I posted a while back that with the dearth of grass court players in the world today - players that REALLY know how to play on grass - BB could come back right now and make an impact.

Some of my favorite matches were Becker/Sampras. That was a collossal match up and one of the best rivalries of all time. Epic.

Hail to Becker - he is sorely missed.

Jet

[Mick]

Becker was a fantastic player but I recall he did not have much luck against Sampras. He could beat everyone but not Sampras.

bad memory.
Becker did win some matches.

http://www.atptennis.com/3/en/player...2=pete+sampras

[Hughy86]

Originally Posted by vudal

Becker is just jealous. He sucks compared to all of them

http://www.atptennis.com/5/en/player...yernumber=B028

49 Titles and 25mill in prize money for BB.

Yea BB blows...[Sarcasm off]

I believe you are the one who is jealous.

[jktennis59]

Becker was the first superathletic tennis players. Acoording to Brad Gilbert, Becker intimidated the other players. I remembre his bleeding knees and elbows in several matches. He had great matches against Sampras. The final of the Masters Cup in Hamburg in 1996 (not sure the date) is a classic.
I had the privilege of watching his last professional single match at the Ericsson Open at Key Biscayne. Lost to Safin 7/6 6/0. In the same tournament he reached the doubles semifinals partnering with Gambill.
He was an hybrid between Safin and Nadal plus Sampras volleys.

[The Gorilla]

imagine if philiopoussis trained as hard as ferrer and you get an idea of becker.

[pj80]

Originally Posted by jktennis59

Becker was the first superathletic tennis players. Acoording to Brad Gilbert, Becker intimidated the other players. I remembre his bleeding knees and elbows in several matches. He had great matches against Sampras. The final of the Masters Cup in Hamburg in 1996 (not sure the date) is a classic.
I had the privilege of watching his last professional single match at the Ericsson Open at Key Biscayne. Lost to Safin 7/6 6/0. In the same tournament he reached the doubles semifinals partnering with Gambill.
He was an hybrid between Safin and Nadal plus Sampras volleys.

it was hannover not hamburg*
his last professional match was wimbledon 1999 vs rafter*

[jktennis59]

Originally Posted by The Gorilla

imagine if philiopoussis trained as hard as ferrer and you get an idea of becker.

Totally agree. Another good example.

[vkartikv]

why is becker not someone's coach?? he would make a great coach

[Mick]

Originally Posted by vkartikv

why is becker not someone's coach?? he would make a great coach

maybe he doesn't need the money or doesn't like to travel the globe anymore

[jktennis59]

Originally Posted by pj80

it was hannover not hamburg*
his last professional match was wimbledon 1999 vs rafter*

You're right. Sorry the mistake.

[ericsson]

Becker lost to Sampras in the final of the 1996 ATP Tour World Championships in Hannover, Germany, 3-6, 7-6, 7-6, 6-7, 6-4. Becker saved two match points in the fourth set and held serve 27 consecutive times until he was broken in the penultimate game. Sampras, who had lost to Becker a month earlier in a five-set final in Stuttgart, later called Becker the best indoor player he ever faced. that says enough...

[jaisrh]

I'm guessing that he never had the pleasure of getting a beat down from Federer. He retired shortly after Federer turned pro.

Becker is 4-10 lifetime against Agassi with the first 3 wins coming before 1990 or before Agassi turned 20. Considering that Becker is only 2 and a half years older than Agassi and their careers had a great deal of overlap that's a rather pathetic record, plus Agassi slacked off during stretches in the 90s. Becker could'nt handle Agassi's return and could'nt consistently hang with him from the baseline. Federer returns pretty well and could outrally Agassi. Federer handles power very well too as evidenced by his consistent success returning Roddick's serve and handling the groundstrokes of power baseliners like Gonzalez. He also has great passing shots on both sides and is a very good volleyer himself. Federer is at or near the top in both holding and breaking serve stats and that probably makes him unique among all past great champions.

Federer does everything equal or better than Becker. The only area Becker is arguably better is maybe the serve but while his serve was considered among the biggest for most of his career more players with big serves started to come out in the 90s so that Becker did'nt even have as much of an advantage anymore even on his biggest weapon. Federer has an underrated serve and was 3rd on the tour in aces last year. Federer has a much better return and return game in general. His forehand is probably the best overall and his backhand one of the best.

In short, I think Federer would win at least 8 out 10 matches against Becker if both were in their prime. It would be closer on grass or fast indoor surfaces but Federer would still have an overall edge. Federer would win almost all of the matches on medium speed hardcourt and absolutely own Becker on clay or slow hardcourt.

The weakest part of Sampras' game was his backhand and his return game overall. Sampras relied so much on his serve and volley game that he did'nt break serve often and had many close sets and matches. While Sampras won most of those matches his backhand and return game cost him a number of matches every year which made it tough for him to keep his losses in the single digits in a year unlike Federer who has done it for 3 straight years and counting. Sampras had at least a few early round exits every year and while he finished number 1 for 6 straight years he temporarily gave up the top spot a number of times during those 6 years because his points advantage was usually slim compared to Federer's stranglehold in the rankings.

[THUNDERVOLLEY]

Originally Posted by Jet Rink

Some of my favorite matches were Becker/Sampras. That was a collossal match up and one of the best rivalries of all time. Epic.

Hail to Becker - he is sorely missed.

Jet

Agreed. Rarely have I witnessed two players so evenly matched in skill. I really miss that period.

As much as I appreciate Federer, everyone (especially the tennis PTB/commentators/writers, et al) should admit Roger simply does not have the high level of competition faced during the McEnroe/Becker/Sampras overlapping eras. Roger has it easy with a field of laughably one-dimensonal, one-note players and a sea of never-going-to-be half-asses.

[BeckerFan]

Originally Posted by jaisrh

Becker is 4-10 lifetime against Agassi with the first 3 wins coming before 1990 or before Agassi turned 20. Considering that Becker is only 2 and a half years older than Agassi and their careers had a great deal of overlap that's a rather pathetic record, plus Agassi slacked off during stretches in the 90s.

I think there's no question that Agassi was a greater player than Becker, and that the American posed particular match-up problems for the German. But we shouldn't overlook who Becker DID beat. He went 5-1 in Grand Slams against Lendl, one of the all-time baseliners; he beat Lendl at Wimbledon in 1986, 1988 and 1989, as well as at the US Open in 1989--and these were during Lendl's very best years! On the flipside, Lendl seemed to own Agassi on the big stages: he won easily in both of their Grand Slam meetings, at the US Open in 1988 and 1989. Of course, both of these matches were before Agassi really hit his stride, and he did manage to win his last two matches against Lendl in 1992 and 1993. But it's hard to say how these two would have done had they played each other in their respective primes; even harder to say how Becker would have fared against Federer. Pure, idle speculation.