COMPAQ GRAND SLAM CUP

December 6, 1994

Boris Becker

BORIS BECKER: Well, it was very close. He had me first set. It was very close in the second up 'til 4-All. I really didn't know whether I'd come out alive even though I had my chances, especially in set 2, beginning of second set I have Love-40; I have a couple of times 30-All, 15-30, but I wasn't able to convert the important points. And then I had my set point and he missed pretty easy backhand, in my opinion, after a few changeovers, and that changed the whole match around. All of a sudden, I was feeling more comfortable and he was feeling the pressure a little bit. I started to serve extremely well then and he sort of put his head down in the first game or two of the third set and gave me the opportunity and the chances really to take the match right there.

BORIS BECKER: You know, depends against who you play. But it is a normal supreme court. Unfortunately, we don't play on that anymore. It is a court I really like, but it is pretty quick, yeah.

BORIS BECKER: That was even faster.

BORIS BECKER: No, that carpet court is even faster. You cannot really play from the back or only just a few people may be able to play from the back.

BORIS BECKER: This is a normal indoor court. That is how you play all the time in all the years. Just this year, they brought it, those new rules that they have to slow down the game, and Frankfurt was slower than here obviously.

BORIS BECKER: It was obviously very important. It is a tournament I only played once before, and I lost to the same guy; so the pressure was really on today; make the same guy again, it is just something very funny; doesn't happen often in years, back-to-back. And I, you know, was trying really hard today to be able to come out as a winner.

BORIS BECKER: Let us stick with this year. I think everybody is glad to go on the holidays and not think about tennis for a few weeks, anyway and including myself. And obviously I am excited to go to the Australian Open this year; I missed it last year. And I saw many chance on the television, so I am going this year with my family and hopefully have a good tournament, but I really don't want to talk much about next year.

BORIS BECKER: What do you want to hear?

BORIS BECKER: Kind of an old question by now. Things have changed a lot in tennis. When the tournament started a lot of players thought it was against the ATP Tour and so few players didn't play here because they have supported the ATP Tour. With their new goals how it turned out to be, the ATP, it wasn't perfect for everybody including myself and also we learned a few new things about this tournament we didn't know before, and, you know, many things have changed in the tennis scene and for the past two years, almost everybody who has a chance to -- who has qualified for this tournament is coming here and playing and I think especially, you know, I saw last year the semifinal, the final, you don't get much better tennis than that, so I think everybody is taking it really, really serious by now. Maybe the first or second year, everybody thought it was an exhibition more, but that has changed a lot over the years.

BORIS BECKER: Well, I answered this question, I suppose. I am going to talk about one match at a time this week and let us not talk about last year and next year. A lot has been said; a lot has changed here in Munich and I do not want to talk about this now.

BORIS BECKER: I am glad I have won today, but I have been playing better than I did today. There were few very good points, but some good points, take the first set and the half of the second, I never really had two very good balls in a row. My serve wasn't very great in the first set. My goal was clear to win whatever way and when I knew ten days ago that I was going to play Wayne again, I thought that was a coincidence and I knew what was waiting for me, what I was in for, but as I said, I wasn't brilliant today, but I won. The goal is achieved.

BORIS BECKER: I would prefer Bjorkman because he served fewer aces.

BORIS BECKER: That is also a fairly old song and I would not like to talk about this during this tournament.

BORIS BECKER: Well, he was unlucky in the third set. He lost his first serve and so I could lead 3 nothing right at the beginning of the third set, so it sort of equalized.

BORIS BECKER: Well, a system would be great of course, if we could find it. Where there are no more mistakes being made. But until now, there is no such thing as a perfect system. Nevertheless, I prefer to talk to people at the baseline and not to a machine, which doesn't often reply anyway, if you ask a question. So I would favor people being at the service line and at the baseline. They make mistakes, of course, but then they are equivalent with ours, what we are doing ourselves.

BORIS BECKER: Well, this also has been so frequently discussed I mean, there is a lot of money in many other tournaments and it is a professional sport; isn't it? And this is what we are all aiming at. Now, whether it is reasonable or not to have a lot of prize money, that is an internal discussion. I mean, if you were a good tennis player you would come; wouldn't you?

BORIS BECKER: Well, that is a question I don't want to talk about.

BORIS BECKER: No, I didn't have time to talk about this. When we meet it is a 25 meter distance so we couldn't talk about it really.

BORIS BECKER: No. I'd like to play on Thursday because three days would be too long.