So the wave was with me, but whether I kept riding the wave or fell off it would be determined by who won the third set. I had a set point at 5-4 and three more at 6-5, in fact the three at 6-5 were all second serves but I couldn’t make any of them. So when he held serve for 6-6 to take us into another tiebreak, the momentum could have swung back to him. This is the kind of situation where one point, one stroke of luck, even one bad call (and we didn’t have Hawk-Eye then) could decide the whole match.
The statistical records show that I won the tiebreak 7-3, but the numbers don’t tell the story. The two crucial points were the second and third. On both of them, I made him play an extra volley, and he missed both on the backhand. When we changed ends after six points, I had won all six of them. He then went on to win three, but the damage had been done.
The momentum from the tiebreak allowed me to break him in the first game of the fourth set. At that point I sat down and said ‘Five more service games’. I literally thought ‘five more times holding serve’. It didn’t put pressure on me – it helped me focus. That was my mindset when I came out to serve at 2-1, 3-2, 4-3. Then at 5-4 I felt the rush. I felt nervous for the first time, as I saw everybody screaming. I put a towel over my head and thought ‘Oh my God’.
The umpire calls ‘Time’. I walk out to receive the balls. Four more points. The screaming is almost unbearably loud. I try to bounce the ball and can hardly do it because it seems to stick to my hand. I start with a double fault. 0-15. Still four more points. I then put in a couple of good serves. 30-15. I then miss a first serve – what do I do with my second serve? I decide I can’t play safe and for me not playing safe means I have to go for it, it’s my way of expressing myself. So I go for a big second serve and it pays off. 40-15. Two championship points. More screaming. I prepare to serve but have to break off my service motion. The ball is barely leaving my left hand. An ace would do it, but I miss the first serve. Second serve; go for it – another double fault! 40-30.
I then close my eyes, and say a quiet prayer: ‘God, give me one more point, just one more point’. I was raised a Roman Catholic, I took my first communion when I was 10 – I think there’s a connection, I connect myself with a higher being, whatever His name is, but I believe in a god, I believe there’s something greater than us. So I have this conversation with Him, He is the only guy I can talk to at this moment – no-one else will listen to me, so I have to get some inspiration from Him, and some peacefulness and quiet. I serve to the backhand, Kevin nets his return, and that’s it – just as I’d imagined in my daydream the night before.
As I walked to the net I felt that my life had now changed. As I shook his hand, I felt this was a new beginning. It wasn’t a feeling I’d known before.
I went through the formalities – shaking the umpire’s hand, shaking the referee’s hand, receiving the trophy, lifting the trophy, the lap of honour – and I saw people staring at me, in disbelief and in awe. I just couldn’t believe what I’d done. I saw the president of West Germany, Richard von Weizsäcker, in the front row of a full Royal Box. My parents and sister had only flown in for the semi-final, no earlier, and I remember going back to the locker room and hugging them all. They looked at me in disbelief, as if they were saying ‘You can’t be our son’. And at that moment I felt whatever I left behind I left for good. The media obligations took longer than the match. Then there was the champions’ dinner, and I’d been told the men’s champion had to dance with the women’s champion. I thought I’d have to have the first dance with Martina Navratilova, and I couldn’t dance. They’d actually abolished that tradition a few years before, but I didn’t know, and Ţiriac was happy to string me along for a while, making me think I had to dance with Martina. When I found out I didn’t I was relieved, but I still had other things to worry about. I didn’t have a dinner jacket, I couldn’t even tie a tie – I was simply not prepared, it hadn’t been part of the plan to think about what would happen after the match. We went back to the Gloucester and I tried on a couple of tuxedos, it was only about the second time I’d worn one.
At about nine o’clock that evening, we walked into the Savoy. Everyone stood up, but funnily enough it didn’t feel odd for me. I walked in there and felt I belonged – I’d won the tournament, so it was appropriate.
I had to make a speech but I kept it very short. I had no alcohol, a sip of champagne maybe – I was 17, I just didn’t drink at all. At one stage the chairman of the club, Buzzer Hadingham, and his wife came up to where I was sitting with my parents. Buzzer spoke very good German, but his wife didn’t. As they approached our table, I stood up, which prompted Mrs Lois Hadingham to look at my mother and exclaim ‘Oh what a tall boy he is. What is he – six-two, six-three?’ My mother’s English was rather limited then, and she totally mistook the question. ‘Oh no,’ she said, ‘6-3, 6-7, 7-6, 6-4!’ (it was the score by which I’d won the final!).
Talk to people who win their first major today, and they’ll tell you they’re lucky to get any sleep on the first night – there are celebrations until the small hours, and then a round of press, TV interviews and photo shoots in the morning. We just went back to the Gloucester. I slept pretty well – I can’t remember for how long – and at around noon we flew out of London.
A day or two later, it emerged that my father had organised a reception with the mayor of Leimen. He said everyone wanted to see me, and to celebrate with me. That was the last thing I wanted but my father said I had to do it, it was his pride, and Ţiriac supported him. So a week after the final we had this open-topped Mercedes, like the Popemobile, and 30,000 or 40,000 people lined the streets as I drove through Leimen, including through my old neighbourhood. People who had known me for 17½ years were all of a sudden screaming my name, perhaps because they knew I was gone as the boy from their small town. It was strange; it felt very odd for me to get this much adulation. I felt awkward and didn’t feel it was right – I was intimidated by it.
We went to the tennis club and a schoolmate of mine, Andreas, asked security if we could get in, and when the security guard was a bit suspicious, Andreas said ‘Look, it’s Boris Becker!’ So the guy opened the gates, but I said quietly to my friend, ‘Andi, just relax! I’m the same guy. I’ve won a tournament, but I haven’t changed the world.’ But he couldn’t believe it. And that’s when I got the physical evidence that people had changed. This was the feeling I’d had at match point – I got goosebumps, a feeling that something was different. A week later I had found out what.
The postscript to my Wimbledon triumph was provided by Erich Fritsch, the principal from the Helmholtz grammar school. I saw him on the parade, he came to the tennis club, and he asked me if we could have a quick chat. We talked for about 10 minutes, but his main line of conversation was whether I was really sure about a career as a tennis professional or whether I mightn’t be better off going back to school. ‘Herr Fritsch,’ I said, ‘I’ve just won Wimbledon! I realise something can still happen, but...’
‘So you’re not coming back?’ he replied. ‘I just have to hear it officially.’
‘No,’ I said, ‘I’m not coming back.’