And the third round was a retirement due to injury (96), and the fourth round was when he was virtually retired (99). His Wimbledon record in the 90s was good.
Plus most of the time he only ever lost to the eventual champion
Boris knew that he was beginning to have some problems, i.e. usually needing pills to get to sleep, the constant pressure of expectation, and his problems would be harder to get rid of if he played on. By 1990-92, he knew he had a real problem with sleeping pill addiction. He almost slept in the 1990 Wimbledon final! By 1992, I think he was going cold turkey and had insomnia for a while and his results suffered for most of the year, although he won Olympic doubles gold with Michael Stich in Barcelona. By late 1992, Boris seemed to have got over the pill problem, more than 5 years after he had started taking them.
not so bad, given the Sampras era
Yes but to be fair, while peak wise Pete is arguably the carpet GOAT, consistency wise he was not quite as dominant as in Wimbledon but had the tendency to lose some matches here and there outside of the big ones (in all his 5 YEC wins he has a RR loss, lost against Muster in Essen etc). Becker’s wins against Pete are mostly from RR matches or tournaments outside the YEC, in YEC finals he is 0-2.
12-7 to Sampras in their head-to-head. All of Becker's 7 wins over Sampras were on indoor carpet.
Barely. And in 96 had to play the best match of his career to get by BB that day.
There were problems with lifestyle, and even at his best Becker never reached world no. 1 for any year.
Peak past-peak, you mean.
That sounds like the Becker we knew...never a gazelle around the court, needing to dive for volleys.
Is that career hth? That doesn't sound too good for Pete.
Yes, that's the career head-to-head. 12-7 to Sampras. 7-6 to Becker indoors, 6-0 to Sampras outdoors.
Becker was too slow around court.
Terrible = doesn't win it
Made 3
I hardly think that making 3 finals (1990, 1991, 1995) is being 'terrible'. Sometimes it is not about your level but your opponents. In 1990 Edberg barely won in 5 sets, in 1991 Stich was playing inspired tennis and 1995 it was against Sampras, who brought things up to a new level. He was was most unlucky in 1996. I feel he had a chance to win Wimbledon again but he injured his wrist. The reason I think that is that he won the Australian Open on slow hard court in January and once he healed his wrist in the late part of the year he had a superior H2H over Sampras during that period. Also won the Grand Slam Cup (ITF’s season end final) So in 1996 outside of Injury he was in top form.
You shouldn't have said this.
You should have read and quoted my whole post before jumping on it. I said peak wise Pete is arguably carpet GOAT but he has several odd losses especially in smaller tournaments. Lendl - among Mac - is arguably the most successful player on carpet, I give you that (9 consecutive YEC finals are tough to beat), but his is not what I was talking about. I cannot see any version of Lendl beating Pete from 96 and 99 YEC final or from the 97 GSC match against Rafter.
Perhaps it was the indoor surfaces and other conditions that suited Becker's game more than grass or hard courts, at that time?
I recall watching Sampras beat Lendl in the summer of 1992. I remember being unsure at the time if Sampras was really good, because mainly I felt sad that Lendl was clearly on the decline.
Very interesting. Sampras vs Becker at Wimbledon, Pete leads 3-0
The 1996 Stuttgart Indoor final (a Super 9 final) Becker won in 5 sets against Sampras.
And Becker never broke the Sampras serve at Wimbledon, despite winning 2 out of 11 sets. Sampras broke the Becker serve 12 times over the 3 matches.
Pete was not at his peak level in 90-91. Though Pete did win the 90 USO he did not win his next slams, Wimbledon and USO, until 93
Yes. But that stretch started with age 22, which should have been his peak.
I know that of course therefore I wrote “mostly”. Other than the Stuttgart final, Becker won three YEC RR matches, two semis in Stockholm in 90 and 94 as well as a Quarter in 91. Sampras also won their Paris final in 95 (best of five), which means he leads Becker 3-1 in finals on carpet. I still stand by what I said that peak-wise Sampras was better even though Boris leads him 7-6 overall on carpet.
Peak Uncle Bob. Unfortunately PETE was the T-1000, minus the losing part.
