German tennis players Steffi Graf and Boris Becker with their trophies after their wins in the Women’s and Men’s Singles at Wimbledon on July 9, 1989.
At the Hopman Cup in 1992, Boris Becker remembered playing mixed doubles with a fellow German, “Steffi Graf was amazing and I sucked.”
Six-time Grand Slam champion Boris Becker recently reminisced about the 1992 Hopman Cup, when he and the illustrious Steffi Graf played mixed doubles tennis for Germany.
A follower of Becker’s on Instagram asked him if he had ever played doubles with Graf during a lighthearted Q&A session. In response, he joked that he “sucked” and that the 22-time Grand Slam champion did all the heavy lifting at the Perth tournament.
Their joint appearance in the tournament was limited to that one edition. Graf won the trophy the next year in a partnership with former Wimbledon champion Michael Stich. Presently, Boris Becker is keeping himself occupied by launching his apparel line. He recently shared a video of a quick tour of the brand’s store on social media to mark the opening of the location in Turkey.
In the 1980s and 1990s, Boris Becker and Steffi Graf dominated the sport. When Graf defeated Martina Navratilova to win her first Grand Slam at the French Open in 1987, she started to make her mark in tennis history, while Becker became the youngest player to win Wimbledon ever at the age of 17.
At the 1989 Wimbledon Championships, both German players were at the peak of their abilities. To win the men’s singles championship, Becker defeated Stefan Edberg, the reigning champion. But the match that people talk about most is his exhausting five-set semifinal match against the number one seed, Ivan Lendl. At the time, the record for the length of a duel was four hours and one minute. The four hours and forty-three-minute match between Novak Djokovic and Juan MartÃn del Potro in 2013 was the only match to surpass it.
