The Joy of Six: Wimbledon upsets | Sport | The Guardian
The Joy of Six
The Joy of Six: Wimbledon upsets
From Boris Becker feeling both sides of a shock to Ivo Karlovic helping to pave the way for Roger Federer, half a dozen underdog stories from SW19
Martina Hingis, right, congratulates Jelena Dokic on the Australian’s victory in 1999. Photograph: Gerry Penny/EPA
The Joy of Six
The Joy of Six: Wimbledon upsets
From Boris Becker feeling both sides of a shock to Ivo Karlovic helping to pave the way for Roger Federer, half a dozen underdog stories from SW19
Friday 24 June 2016 05.00 EDT
Last modified on Thursday 3 November 2016 20.56 EDT
Close
1) Jelena Dokic stuns Martina Hingis in 1999
At an age when most of us are trying to find our place in the world, in between attempts to convince the suspicious off-licence owner that our name really is Brian McGee , Martina Hingis already knew where she belonged. Her journey towards all-time greatness began when she became the French Open junior champion at the age of 12. Winning the 1995 women’s doubles at Wimbledon when she was 15 years and nine months old made her the youngest grand slam champion in history and she shot to stardom in 1997, winning her first singles titles at the Australian Open, Wimbledon and the US Open, and would have held the calendar slam but for a defeat to Iva Majoli in the final at Roland Garros.
For all of Hingis’s dominance in the late 90s though, her dramatic fall from grace was a cautionary tale about how fame and glory can have a negative impact on a young person’s state of mind if they are not capable of handling global fame, a story of too much too soon, and she lost a few friends after describing Amelie Mauresmo, who had just revealed that she was a lesbian, as “half a man” before beating the Frenchwoman in the Australian Open final in 1999. “Perhaps she just said it for a laugh, without thinking, but the next day she wasn’t very clear either in saying that I played like a man,” Mauresmo said. “It was stupid of her.”
There is a fine line between being viewed as adorably precocious and a spoiled brat by the public and Hingis strayed over it during a controversial French Open final against Steffi Graf later that year. Hingis led by a set and a break when she erupted after a forehand return was called long, protesting to the umpire in vain before being docked a point for marching to Graf’s side to point out the mark.
Previously so cool and self-assured, all of a sudden she looked like a female version of Harry Enfield’s Kevin Patterson , directing a sarcastic thumbs up at the umpire, smiling about the injustice of it all, informing the world that she had never asked to be born.
An underarm serve late in the third set drew whistles from the unforgiving French crowd, who dismissed the tactic as petulant and unsporting, and an emotional Hingis disappeared at the end of the match. She was still sobbing after being guided back on court by her mother, Melanie Molitor, for the presentation ceremony. “Worse had happened just off court when Hingis, beside herself with the frustration of losing to Graf and missing the one grand slam title she has yet to win, slapped a Women’s Tennis Association official,” Stephen Bierley, the Guardian’s tennis correspondent at the time, wrote . “She was fined £1,000 for her behaviour on court but the WTA appears to have swept the other incident under the carpet of expediency.”
Hingis would never win another grand slam singles title. She was still the world No1 when she arrived at Wimbledon yet all was not well in Hingis’s world when she emerged for her first-round match against Jelena Dokic, a 16-year-old qualifier from Australia and the world No129. For the first time in Hingis’s career, her mother was not present for a grand slam match. “We decided to have a little bit of distance,” she said.
On HBO, the commentators spotted clear signs of fragility as Hingis was blown away by Dokic. “She had the starch knocked out of her at the French, but that was three weeks ago,” Mary Carillo said. Hingis looked emotionally spent after the events of Paris and appeared to be fighting back the tears as an astonishingly one-sided contest neared its end.
Dokic, hitting her forehand superbly, took 54 minutes to win 6-2, 6-0 in in her first Wimbledon outing. The Guardian called it “the upset of the century” .
“I thought she could always maybe come back, and I knew if I gave her a chance, she would take it,” Dokic said. “I just tried to win every point, no matter if it was 15-0, or 30-30, or deuce.”
Dokic went on to reach the quarter-finals after beating the ninth seed, Mary Pierce, only to lose to another qualifier, Alexandra Stevenson, in the last eight. She looked like a future champion.
Yet Dokic never fulfilled that early potential for reasons ranging from injuries and illness to, more disturbingly, allegations over an abusive relationship with her father, Damir Dokic. Despite briefly rising to No4 in the WTA rankings in 2002, Dokic has not been seen on the Tour since withdrawing from a match at Charleston in 2012. Dokic is 33. Serena Williams, the current No1, is 34. JS
The Joy of Six: great Wimbledon finals
Read more
2) Boris Becker wins (1985 and 1986), then loses to Peter Doohan (1987 second round)
We tell ourselves that we’re amazed by a sporting upset, but the truth is it is an affectation. We know they happen because they’ve always happened, and they’re part of why we watch; when talented people throw down, anything can happen.
But every so often, along comes one that resonates and intoxicates for eternity; Boris Becker winning Wimbledon in 1985 , say. In many ways, this was not only the most spectacular upset of them all but the most thrilling achievement too: the theatre not limited to one game but extending across two weeks. As humans, we are genetically programmed to derive absurd pleasure from watching youngsters emerge and then fulfil; ordinarily, these are separate events … ordinarily.
There was nothing ordinary about Becker.
Everything he did, he did with ferocious, infectious conviction, a tender brute with stupendous thighs who would do anything to win. And the crowd absolutely loved him. In particular, he became famous for hurling himself at balls seemingly out of reach – or, put another way, the kind of thing that everyone does in every other sport but tennis.
Though Becker’s dad was involved in the building of a tennis centre in their hometown of Leimen, the plan was for young Boris to finish school, go to university and get a job. But his talent had other ideas, so at the age of 15 he turned professional and quickly won a few junior tournaments.
Raised to stand up for himself in every circumstance, he achieved the rare feat of shocking John McEnroe with his aggression. After having his shoulder bumped at change of ends, school corridor-style, McEnroe was moved to advise him that it might do to win something prior to making such a fuss; that was in March 1985.
Three months later, Becker won at Queen’s Club, which took him to number 20 in the world. Though he did not exactly dispatch a murderer’s row of opponents in so doing, the “unusual beating” he dished out in the final prompted Johan Kriek, its recipient, to observe that if Becker served that well at Wimbledon, he might just win that too. Everyone laughed, while he visited a bookmaker. By the time Becker arrived at the fiercest of all London postcodes, he was not exactly an unknown, but he was only 17.
His run through the tournament was an eventful one. In round two, he quelled Matt Anger for the loss of just four games, then beat Joakim Nystrom 9-7 in the fifth set after Nystrom had twice served for the match. In round four, he came from two sets to one down against Tim Mayotte, a match in which he twisted his ankle so badly that he set off towards the net, only for his team to call him back; had he been closer, they’d have been too late.
In the quarter-final, he got rid of Henri Leconte, then in the semi found himself a set and a break down to Anders Jarryd. But then it rained and Jarryd got nervous, Becker blowing him away when they came back on the Saturday.
Until that point, it had seemed like the real drama was on the other side of the draw, where Kevin Curren was on a tear. In the fourth round, he removed Stefan Edberg in straight sets, before moving on to meet McEnroe, No1 seed, defending champion and finalist five years in a row; his record for 1984 was a brilliant, baffling 82-3.
But Curren saw to him – and then Jimmy Connors – in straight sets, reaching the championship match without dropping a service game. Hoping to find some inspiration the night before it, he went to see Bruce Springsteen play Wembley Stadium. Instead, he inspired an opponent still in the zone after playing earlier that day. To Curren, though, he was just that kid he’d practised with a few months earlier, the same kid who hit some good shots and some bad shots; he would be defeated by simple steadiness and accordant pressure.
Perhaps not. Boom Boom Boris was fired by youth and served by the serve of a grown man. His was the perfect grass court game and frame, and at 17 years and 227 days, he became the first German and the first unseeded player to win Wimbledon, as well as the youngest ever grand slam champion.
A year later, seeded four, Becker took care of the suggestion that he did well to beat the bloke who beat the blokes, rather than the blokes themselves. He retained his title with minimum fuss and maximum prejudice, seeing away Mikael Penfors, Miroslav Mecir, Leconte and Ivan Lendl for the loss of just two sets. He was still improving and ready to rule for a generation; there was nothing anyone could do about it.
Pinterest
After winning the title on his first two trips to SW19, few would have predicted that Becker would add only one further Wimbledon crown to his collection. Photograph: Bob Thomas/Getty Images
At the 1987 championships, Becker was seeded first, easily disposing of Karel Novacek in the first round. Then, in the second, he was drawn against Peter Doohan, the owner of a name so Australian as to practically force a person into an accent.
Becker had whacked Doohan in the process of winning Queen’s, after which Doohan had lost to 246th-ranked Paul Chamberlin; it was impossible to conceive of an upset even though there was scarcely anywhere more conducive. In those days, the courts at Wimbledon played faster and lower than they do now and, just as the French Open was frequented by clay court specialists, so SW19 attracted serve-volleyers like Doohan, rather than the all-court bores of today. Under-perform against a big bloke with a big serve who had a big day? See you later.
But this was Boris Becker, yet to lose at the All England – has ever a place been so inappropriately named? – against Peter Doohan, yet to win there in four attempts. The previous year, tendinitis in his right shoulder limited Doohan to just seven singles matches; he lost them all and was ranked No70 in the world.
For different reasons, both players went for everything; Doohan because he had to, and Becker because he had no reason not to. In the event, Becker missed and Doohan hit, his return of serve a particular feature. Though Becker still flung down 14 aces and 21 service winners, he was also forced to play numerous low volleys, so sought extra power and produced seven double-faults.
The upshot was an spiralling Wutanfall and a four-set defeat. “What surprised Boris was that I kept it up,” said Doohan. “I have to prove to everybody this is not a once-in-a-lifetime thing.”
As for Becker, he’d calmed down by the time he came off, ready, whether he meant it or not, to deliver a clear-eyed and concise lesson to the “great British public”.
“What do you think happened?” he was asked.
“Well basically I lost a tennis match,” he replied. “I didn’t lose a war, nobody died, I lost a tennis match and I tried as hard as I could.”
The lesson remains unlearned to this day. DH
3) Margaret Court loses to unknown newcomer (1962 second round)
Given the identity of her second-round conqueror, perhaps it was not such a shock when Margaret Court – known as Margaret Smith at the time – made an early exit in 1962. After all, Billie Jean King knew her way around a tennis court, eventually racking up 12 grand slam singles titles during a wonderful career, and the American’s place in the hall of fame is not up for debate. Yet her victory at SW19 that day was a remarkable effort bearing in mind that it was only her second singles match at Wimbledon, while Court was the world No1, the French Open champion and a three-times winner at the Australian Open.
But she was stopped in her tracks by then unheralded 20-year-old Billie Jean Moffitt, who displayed amazing resilience to fight back after losing the first set to win 1-6, 6-3, 7-5. It was the start of a brilliant rivalry and Court had her revenge when she beat King in the final a year later. It was the first of her three Wimbledon singles titles; King would win twice as many. Court later admitted to suffering from nerves in south-west London but otherwise she had the edge in their encounters and won their most memorable match, beating King 14-12, 11-9 in the Wimbledon final in 1970. Even then, she needed seven match points to finish her off. JS
The Joy of Six: Roger Federer
Read more
4) Ian Collins beats Henri Cochet (1932 second round)
Along with Jean Borotra, Jacques Brugnon and René Lacoste, Henri Cochet was one of France’s quatre mousquetaires who bestrode tennis from the mid-1920s to early 1930s. Perhaps their most significant success came together, in 1927: in the days when the Davis Cup was sport’s premier team trophy, they beat the USA at Germantown Cricket Club, with Cochet despatching Bill Johnston in the decisive rubber. The Philadelphia Four, as they also became known, then won the next five finals, beating the same opponents in four of them . As a direct consequence, the French Tennis Federation built Roland Garros at Porte d’Auteuil; the trophy awarded to the winner of their open championship was named la Coupe des Mousquetaires.
As befitted his sobriquet, Cochet was a man of chic, élan, esprit and numerous other evocative French words. Sporting slicked back hair, smouldering eyes and an intimidating jaw hewn from canoe, he was known for his short-sleeved white shirt and white trousers, along with an instinctive, zesty and acrobatic all-court game, marked by mastery of the half-volley.
Cochet won his first grand slam in 1926, beating Lacoste in Paris, then took the Wimbledon doubles with Brugnon, the first of their five slams together. Later that year, he knocked Bill Tilden, a Davis Cup rival, out of the US National Championships (now the US Open), thereby denying him a seventh straight victory.
1927 saw Cochet’s first Wimbledon singles title, and it remains one of the greatest of all time. In the quarter-final he battled back from two sets to one down and in the semi gave Tilden a 6-2, 6-4, 5-1 start before winning 17 straight points and, eventually, the match. Then, in the final, he was two sets down to Borotra and saved six match points before eventually getting it done.
Next, Cochet won in Paris, again, and New York, followed by Wimbledon again in 1929 and Paris again in 1930, beating Tilden again. Auto-Journal marvelled at “without a doubt the finest tennis ever seen in Paris”, while legend records traffic jams stretching all the way from Roland Garros to the Seine. Cochet then regained the title in 1932.
So when he arrived at Wimbledon two weeks later, he was the No1 seed and a strong favourite – particularly because Lacoste and Tilden were absent. The previous year, he had lost to Nigel Sharpe in the first round, but had yet to recover from flu that caused him to miss the French Open.
His first round game was easy enough – he dismissed a qualifier in straight sets, and according to Time magazine, debate centred around who would play him in the final. In round two, he was drawn against Ian Collins.
Pinterest
Rare archive footage of Cochet playing a match in 1927.
Collins was the kind of storybook all-rounder cultivated by posh schools. At Harrow, he was a regular in a very strong football team, missing out on an Oxford blue only because of an injury from which he never fully recovered. Even so, he was fit enough to be named as twelfth man in the Varsity cricket match – he later played for Scotland – and won half-blues in golf and tennis.
The tennis world, though, was slightly different; Collins became a doubles specialist, never reaching the singles quarter-finals of any slam. Perth’s Sunday Times commented that he suffered from the “permanent disablement of one leg”, and as a consequence, his service resembled the “fantastic appearance of a monkey mounting a pole”.
And yet, somehow, Collins put it on Cochet, who began the first set expecting to win easily, amusing himself with the occasional winner, then lost it 6-2 to his gross consternation. Then, in the second set, he disagreed with a line call awarded in his favour, the game pausing for the exchange of sentiments; eventually, the official recused himself.
Collins then took the second set 8-6, at which point Court 1 started filling up with thrill seekers leaving Centre – they arrived in time to see the favourite blast through the third set 6-0. But in the fourth he was, said the Sydney Morning Herald, “tired and lacking in concentration”. Collins took a 4-1 lead, before Cochet stopped cotching and won the next two games, but then lost the two after that to lose the match. Collins left the arena to tumultuous applause.
“Henri Cochet can beat everybody when his shots are working,” said Lacoste later, “and be beaten by everybody when they are not.” DH
5) Ivo Karlovic shocks champion Lleyton Hewitt (2003 first round)
“Two hours and 20 minutes ago, it was Ivo Who?” the BBC’s David Mercer said, capturing the mood on Centre Court as the Croatian outsider prepared to serve for the match against the defending champion. “If he holds serve here, he’ll leave as Karlovic the Conqueror.” The camera focused on Karlovic, trying to detect any signs of nerves while he sat down during the changeover. But by giving nothing away, he emitted an air of focus and determination. He drank from a bottle of water and took one deep breath. A few yards away, a hot and bothered Lleyton Hewitt wiped his face with a towel. The Aussie fighter looked resigned to his fate.
Nobody had seen this coming, not the media, not Hewitt, not even Karlovic. The defending men’s champion had not lost in the first round since the USA’s Charlie Pasarel beat Spain’s Manuel Santana in 1967 and Hewitt, the world No1, could have been forgiven for thinking that it was going to be a doddle when the draw pitched him against a 24-year-old qualifier who was playing at a grand slam for the first time.
Karlovic, all 6ft 10in of him, was the world No203 and the prospect of an upset was almost nonexistent at first, with the agile Hewitt dominating the first set, winning it 6-1 inside 18 minutes. Hewitt was a two-times grand slam champion. Thanks for coming, Ivo. Better luck next year. Assuming you qualify.
But Hewitt was not invincible. His form leading into the tournament was patchy, featuring a third-round defeat to Tommy Robredo at the French Open and the loss of his Queen’s title after a quarter-final defeat to Sebastien Grosjean, and Karlovic began to fight back in the second set, using his giant frame to take control of the match with his fearsome serve. He volleyed well, too, as Hewitt continued to hustle at the baseline and wore the Australian down, securing an unforgettable 1-6, 7-6, 6-3, 6-4 victory .
Pinterest
Hewitt watches yet another Karlovic serve fly past his racket. Photograph: Tom Jenkins for the Guardian
Hewitt never recovered his aura after losing to Karlovic. Though he was a fine player, he rose to the top of the rankings during a time of transition, with Pete Sampras fading, Roger Federer still to establish himself and Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic yet to emerge. He had won both of his grand slam finals, beating Sampras in the US Open in 2001 and David Nalbandian at Wimbledon in 2002.
The fortnight ended with Federer winning the first of his 17 grand slam titles , thumping Mark Philippoussis in the final. A new order emerged. The balance of power shifted and when Hewitt reached the final of the US Open in 2004, he lost 6-0, 7-6, 6-0 to Federer. When he retired in January of this year, he had not been in a final since losing to Marat Safin in the Australian Open 11 years ago. JS
6) Kathy Jordan beats Chris Evert (1983 third round)
Chris Evert was a tennis machine, a metronomic power-hitter with a tungsten will who dominated the women’s game in the mid-to-late 1970s. Most notably, she won both Roland Garros and Wimbledon in 1974, part of a then-record streak of 55 consecutive victories.
By the early 1980s, she had been reeled in by her close friend Martina Navratilova, but in 1982, Evert-Lloyd, as she was then, was in the ascendancy, winning the US and Australian Opens. The second of those completed her career grand slam and, after winning at Roland-Garros in 1983, she headed to Wimbledon already a three-times champion, seeking the only major not already in her possession.
Roger Federer: ‘I need the fire, the excitement, the whole rollercoaster’
Read more
The night before her third round game against Kathy Jordan, Evert-Lloyd was forced to call a doctor, vomiting on account of a stomach virus. But the All England Club refused her request for delay – perhaps they expected her to be saved by rain that never materialised – so prior to playing, she took an anti-nausea injection.
Jordan – unseeded and without so much as a set in their five meetings to that point – absolutely flew at her, meeting Evert-Lloyd’s flat groundstrokes with clever slices, angles and volleys. And Ms JM Lloyd, as the scoreboard had her – “everyone’s favourite daughter-in-law” as the Times had her – simply could not keep up, losing the first set 6-1. Then, in the second, she took a 4-0 lead but, with Jordan mentally preparing for a decider, somehow lost six of the next eight games before being walloped 7-2 in a tiebreaker. For the first time since 1971 and the first time in 34 slams, Evert was out before the semi-final – something that happened only thrice more in the next six years.
“The match had run away like sand through poor Mrs Lloyd’s fingers,” wrote the Times’ Geoffrey Green. “Miss Jordan has spread her game like opening an old chest full of spices, yellowed love letters and summer dresses.”
There can be no greater praise. DH