The birth of a star
Over 11 million Germans watched the July 7, 1985 broadcast of the Wimbledon tennis tournament... On this day in the men's singles final match was won by the very young Boris Becker. He was then only 17 years old. Becker became the youngest tournament winner in the history of tennis Grand Slam and the first German champion of Wimbledon.
The idol of the Germans
The victory at Wimbledon brought Boris Becker worldwide fame. His fans liked not only him sports achivments as such, but also his extraordinary fighting qualities, charisma. Tennis in Germany has never been so popular.
The Ups and Downs of a World Tennis Star
Attacking "bomber"
Preferring sites with "fast" surfaces and a sharp game with rapid exits to the net, Boris Becker often completed his attacks with spectacular jump strikes from the summer, which became his peculiar business card... His strong and accurate serve has earned Becker not only victories on the court, but numerous nicknames, including "bomber" and "boom boom".
The Ups and Downs of a World Tennis Star
Leader of the national team
Before Becker, Germany had not won any prestigious team trophies in tennis. In the 1988 Davis Cup final, the FRG team beat Sweden, for which Wimbledon champion Stefan Edberg played, with a score of 4: 1. Boris Becker - left.
The Ups and Downs of a World Tennis Star
The first racket of the world
The turning point in professional career was the 1989 season when Becker started winning consistently major tournaments... In 1991, having outplayed Ivan Lendl on Open Championship Australia, Becker took first place in the ATP rankings and became "the first racket of the world." In total, the tennis player has won 49 singles championships, including six Grand Slam tournaments.
The Ups and Downs of a World Tennis Star
Olympic champion
For almost ten years, Becker was one of the strongest tennis players in the world. But the youth was already growing up, crowding the "bombardier". With one of his main competitors, compatriot Michael Stich, Becker had to perform in pairs, overcoming his personal antipathy. Off the court they did not speak, but on Olympic Games 1992 in Barcelona won in doubles gold medal.
The Ups and Downs of a World Tennis Star
Last match
The point was set in 1999 - as expected, at the Wimbledon court. Many years later, the athlete will say that sports fame came to him at a very high price: “I have two artificial hips and a steel plate in ankle".
The Ups and Downs of a World Tennis Star
Adultery
The reason for the divorce was Becker's relationship with model Angela Ermakova, who had a daughter in 2000, like two drops of water similar to the famous tennis player. Becker acknowledged paternity only after a genealogical test. In the German language after this scandal, the expression "Besenkammersex" (sex in the closet) appeared.
The Ups and Downs of a World Tennis Star
Illegitimate daughter
An extraordinary appearance and stellar relationship allowed Anna Ermakova to start a career in the modeling business. Boris Becker, in his own words, no longer considers Anna a "mistake" and is even proud of the successes of his beautiful daughter.
The Ups and Downs of a World Tennis Star
Second marriage
Since 2009, Boris Becker has been living in a second marriage - with the Dutch model Charlelie Kerssenberg, who gave the tennis legend a third son. And in their relationship, not everything was smooth, but the couple, as follows from their public confessions, decided to stay together. His wife appreciates Boris for his "kind heart" and "breadth of soul".
The Ups and Downs of a World Tennis Star
Financial mess
The legendary German tennis player regularly became a "star" not only in the gossip, but also in court proceedings. In 2002, Becker received a two-year suspended sentence for tax evasion.
The Ups and Downs of a World Tennis Star
Bankrupt
Becker was declared bankrupt this year. Refunds from former athlete require (at least!) one British commercial bank, as well as Becker's former business partner. It is about multi-million dollar amounts. Becker himself disagrees with the insolvency allegations.
The Ups and Downs of a World Tennis Star
Foreign German
In an interview on his 50th birthday, Becker admitted that he made mistakes. He called himself a "foreign German" - with a German passport, but not with a German soul. In Germany, he said, he spent a happy childhood, but after the first major victory the German media did nothing but tilt his name in every way. Becker does not even think about returning to Germany from London, where he has lived for many years.
The successes of German tennis players of the late 80s - early 90s are remembered by tennis fans with nostalgia. The famous Boris Becker and Steffi Graf, it would seem, should motivate young athletes to feats. But no, tennis in Germany has long ceased to be a sport of national pride. Let's try to analyze the reason for the stagnation of German tennis, and also get acquainted with several promising tennis players from Germany.
Who to look up to?
Do you know what connects the two small German towns of Leiman and Brühl? Somewhere in the middle is a tennis school, where the world tennis stars Boris Becker and Steffi Graf studied and trained together.
Their careers developed at a parallel pace and very rapidly. Already at the age of 17, Boris retrained as a professional player and dropped out of school, and a few months later Becker became the youngest winner of a Grand Slam tournament in tennis history. At the time of his victory in the Wimbledon final in 1985, Boris was 17 years 7 months and 15 days old.
In the game of young Becker, experts noted not only talent and skill, but also the apparent ease with which the young German defeated one rival after another. If the success of 1985 could still be attributed to luck or the effect of surprise, then the victory at the Wimbledon tournament a year later was the fruit of hard work in training. In the final, Becker outplayed one of the the best tennis players that time of Ivan Lendl. That victory finally put the German among the stars of the first magnitude. Already in 1986, Becker climbed to second place in the world classification.
Germany followed the successes of its new hero. It seemed that Becker would become the first racket of the world a little more, but Boris won this title only 5 years later, and in 1988 he led the German national team to the first ever victory in the team competition - the Davis Cup.
Boris Becker, Erik Jelen and Karl-Uwe Steeb defeated the once formidable Swedish team led by Stefan Edberg. A year later, the Germans repeated their success by beating Sweden 3-2. The culmination of the final match was Becker's confident victory over Mats Wilander (6: 2, 6: 0, 6: 2).
As the years passed, Becker's next goal was to participate in the Barcelona Olympics, where he won gold medals together with Michael Stich. By the way, it is Shtikh who is the only German winner of the Grand Slam tournament, not counting Becker. Like his partner in doubles competition, Shtich submitted to Wimbledon.
Becker's last big win was the 1996 Australian Open.On June 25, 1999, Boris Becker, with 49 singles tournament victories, announced his retirement from big sport... In fact, he remains the only truly legendary German tennis player in history.
Of course, you can remember the successes of the same Steich and Steeb, very high-quality tennis performed by Rainer Schuttler and Tommy Haas, but they were just "one of". Germany has been waiting for the arrival of new talents for a long time ... well, do not watch Becker's performances in veteran tournaments all the time ?!
We are looking for talents
Tennis requires a serious investment. Sport equipment, equipment, constant moving - all this makes parents think about whether it is worth giving their child to sports school and develop talent in it. Career development involves regular participation in international competitions world class. Together with the financial crisis, all these factors slow down the growth process of both individual tennis players and the entire tennis school in Germany. Boris Becker in his interviews more than once notes the poor development of infrastructure and regularly criticizes the leadership of the German Tennis Union DTB for inaction in the current situation.
Among the players of our time, Germany can hardly boast of anyone. At Grand Slam tournaments, the Germans, as a rule, fly out long before the end of the competition.
Of those on whom the hope was pinned, only Philip Kolshreiber showed good tennis in places. For a long time, the Germans considered Kolschreiber their main hope, but Philip, by his 28 years, remained a "rising star". At the same time, he is still the first racket in Germany and only 34th in the world.
Florian Mayer, 27, is two positions below, also showing good tennis from time to time. All this, alas, is not enough to achieve great goals. In the Davis Cup, Germany is eliminated over and over again in the early stages.
There are no young talents in the foreseeable future yet. Closes the first hundred 24-year-old Misha Zverev, flying the German flag. Misha was born in Moscow, and at the age of four he moved to Germany with his family. From time to time, Misha adequately defends the honor of German tennis, and in 2009 he managed to climb to the 45th line in the world ranking. This is despite the fact that in the junior categories he was one of the three best tennis players in the world. Misha's style of play differs from many modern tennis players, and resembles Pete Sampras, who regularly went to the net with his serve. Nevertheless, Misha does not show consistently high results, but who knows - maybe he is destined to become the new idol of German fans?
A similar picture is observed in women's tennis... After the phenomenal career of Steffi Graf, and to this day considered one of the greatest female athletes in history, Germany has hardly a single tennis player capable of taking a place even in the top ten of the WTA rankings.
In the mid-90s, Anke Huber took over the role of the leader of the German women's national team, but not a single Grand Slam tournament was submitted to her. Now all Germany's hopes are pinned on 23-year-old Andrea Petkovic, who was born in Yugoslavia, and Sabina Lisicki, a German-born Polish woman. 22-year-old Julia Gerges also performs well, but there is no need to talk about any significant progress of German tennis players yet.
So it turns out that the German fans of this sport have to admire exclusively foreign masters. How to be and what to do? Questions ... questions ...
Julia Gerges is a professional German tennis player, finalist of the 2014 Grand Slam (mixed), winner of 6 WTA tournaments, finalist of the Federation Cup as part of the German national team. This article will present short biography sportswomen.
Childhood
1988 - this is the year when Gerges Julia was born. Tennis has become the girl's main hobby since the age of five. It was at this age that the parents took their daughter to a local club for the first time. Julia's idols were and And Sasha Nensel took up training for young Gerges. She previously taught famous athlete from Germany named Nicholas Kiefer.
Transition to professionals
Julia Gerges began her tennis career in 2005 at the ITF. The girl's debut could not be called successful: in five out of seven tournaments, the athlete was eliminated in the first round. But this did not bother Gerges. The girl continued to work on improving the quality of her own game. And it bore fruit. V next year Julia won confident victories at Bielfeld and Walstead. In 2007 Gerges conquered tournaments in Bucharest and Antalya. Also, the athlete performed for the first time in the WTA. The debut in this federation can be called successful, since Julia immediately reached the semifinals, where she lost to Vera Dushevina. A little later, the athlete got to the Grand Slam competition. Unfortunately, the debut at this tournament was not so successful.
New victories
WTA and ITF - these are the federations in which Yulia Gerges played in parallel in 2008. The tennis player's rating was constantly growing. Immediately after the end of the French championship, she made her debut in the Top 100. Around the same time, the athlete won her first major match at Wimbledon. The game lasted almost four hours, during which Gerges defeated Katarina Srebotnik. But Julia did not succeed in moving to the second round. In this she was prevented by the New Zealand professional Marina Erakovich.
WTA
In 2009, Julia Gerges decided to focus exclusively on the tournaments of this association. She played in all four Grand Slam competitions that year. Although the beginning was not at all triumphant: in Brisbane, the tennis player could not qualify, losing to Anna-Lena Gronefeld. The next three performances were also not crowned with success: in Paris, Warsaw and Australia, Julia was eliminated before the third round. French Open was given to the athlete even worse: she was eliminated in the first round, having received a heat stroke.
Defeats and successes
2010-th Julia Gerges began with a loss in the first round of ASB Classic. In two sets she was defeated by Janina Vikmeyer. The athlete performed a little better at the Australian Open - the girl managed to reach the second round. Gerges' highest achievements in 2011 are the third round of the Australian Open and the ABS Classic semi-finals. In 2013, Julia performed very unstably. She lost nine times in the first round and only twice was able to win two matches in a row (Charleston and Australian Open). For this reason, Gerges fell back in the ranking to the end of the first fifty. A crisis single player was partially offset by the success in the pair: in June, together with Zaglavova-Strytsova, the German reached the Wimbledon quarterfinals. Then Julia marked with Daria Yurak at the final at Stanford.
Tandem performances
In subsequent years, Gerges had to change the schedule of performances in favor of weaker competitions. At one of them (in Pattaya), the athlete reached the semifinals. Julia showed good results in doubles, teaming up with Gronefeld. In May 2014, the tennis players reached the semifinals of the competition in Rome, and in June they advanced to the Wimbledon quarterfinals. The small number of matches in doubles and singles allowed Julia to focus on mixed competitions. Together with Nenad Zenovich, she managed to reach the final of Roland Garros.
The new generation of German tennis players is truly impressive. Petkovic, Lisicki, Kerber, Gerges and Bartel are young, have decent potential, prefer attack to defense and are ready to conquer the WTA tour.
The rapid progress of German tennis players is perhaps the main trend of 2012 in the WTA. Literally in one period, several bright tennis players came to the fore, playing very high level... So far, none of them have won a really big title, and in the Federation Cup this year, the Germans did not work out. In the World Group, they lost to the Czechs in the first round, moreover, they will not be able to compete for the main trophy next year, as they lost to the Australians in the playoffs. Nevertheless, the potential of this team is huge, but let's move from general to specific.
Andrea is a native of Yugoslavia, but when she was six months old, her parents moved to Germany. She herself calls herself "a German woman with a big Serbian heart." She seriously attracted attention in 2010. Then she made her way into the top 50 and gradually became
National representation in the top 20:
Germany - 4;
Russia - 3;
Serbia and Slovakia - 2 each;
Belarus, Czech Republic, Australia, China, USA, Poland, France, Italy, Denmark - 1 each.
a formidable threat to any tennis player. I especially remember her battle with Victoria Azarenka at the Kremlin Cup, when Victoria was extremely important that match for getting on final tournament... The Belarusian won a victory, but spent a lot of effort for this. Then Andrea showed everyone that she must be reckoned with. 2011 is clearly the best year of her career. She attended three quarterfinals at the Grand Slam tournaments, reached the finals of the prestigious competition in Beijing and made her way to the top ten in the world. Unfortunately, at the end of the year, she was seriously injured and began new season only in April. However, at the home competition in Stuttgart, Petkovic was injured again and will have to miss a couple of months. But there is still a chance that Andrea will be able to play at the Olympics.
Among all German women, Petkovic has perhaps the most balanced game. She knows how to play great in attack, but can play reliably in defense. Nevertheless, she does not fall out of the general row of German tennis players. Its signature element on the court is not even a kick, but a victory dance, which has already received its name "Petcodens". At first, Andrea only performed the "dance of little ducklings", but then other movements appeared in her repertoire.
Sabina was born in Germany, but she has Polish roots in her family. She took her main tennis training at the famous Nick Bollettieri Academy, in the very one where Maria Sharapova and the Williams sisters polished their skills. There are students of this academy and among its compatriots - Tommy Haas, Boris Becker and Anka Huber. At the age of 19, she first made her way to the main draw of the Grand Slam tournament. It happened in Melbourne, then Sabina sensationally beat Dinara Safina. At that time, no one knew Lissitzki, so it was a real surprise. A year later, she already reached the Wimbledon quarterfinals, but lost there by the same Safina. In general, the turf is the most successful for her so far. In 2011, she reached the semifinals of the same Wimbledon, where Maria Sharapova stopped her.
V this season Sabina's results are not so good, but this is largely due to her injuries. So far for Lisitska, health is the main one
Another German woman of Polish origin. As a child, in addition to tennis, she went in for swimming. She made the final decision to connect her life with tennis after graduating from high school. Perhaps this explains to a certain extent the fact that it did not open immediately. In the case of Angelica, few expected great results from her, until the age of 23 she was an average peasant without any significant achievements. But that all changed at the US Open, where Kerber sensationally made her way to the semifinals. In the second round, she won over Agnieszka Radwanska, and the rest of her net was relatively successful. In the semifinals, she was stopped by Samantha Stosur, while Angelica managed to take one set from the future winner of the competition. Skeptics were sure that this was only a single shot, and it would not be easy to continue playing at the same level of Kerber. The fact that in the last match in 2011 she lost to Bibiana Schofs only strengthened such sentiments.
But in 2012, Kerber has changed significantly. She added activity to her game, and now she was quite like other German women who rely on the attack. At the Australian Open, she lost to Maria Sharapova. But after a couple of weeks in Paris, Kerber took revenge and generally won this tournament. Later in April, she did well in a competition in Copenhagen, where she beat Caroline Wozniacki in the final, who had never lost a home tournament before. In the WTA championship race, she is in fifth place (the best indicator among German women). In just six months, Angelica has truly transformed from an average to one of the main stars of women's tennis this season.
Julia is probably the most German of the current generation of German women. Her whole family, including her sister, works in the insurance business, but somehow she was brought into the sport. Yulia's parents played at a local club on an amateur level and took her with them when she was six years old, and she liked it.
Görges is quite consistent with the rest of her compatriots in terms of playing style. In her play, the forehand stands out, which is able to unbalance even the most excellent defensive style players. It was the flamboyant attacking play that helped her break through a year ago during the clay season. Then Julia in the final of the prestigious home tournament in Stuttgart defeated Caroline Wozniacki, while the Danish topped the WTA rating list. A couple of weeks later, Görges repeated her success in Madrid, becoming for a while the evil genius of Carolina. Görges reached the final this season major competition in Dubai, where in decisive match lost to Radwanska. Unlike the aforementioned German women, Julia has never reached the quarterfinals at the Grand Slam tournaments, and in the fourth round she was only once at the 2012 Australian Open. This year, Görges set her career record in the WTA rating list - 15th place.
Bartel is the youngest of the current generation of German women and is just beginning to reveal herself. Mona grew up in sports family... Her father trained at a high level athletics, and her older sister dreamed of becoming a tennis player.
With regard to the listed great five German women, there are quite a few unites of them in addition to their nationality - they are young, promising, prefer attack to defense, and none of them has yet conquered a large summit. Germany has a great generation of tennis players. They have already come out on top in terms of the number of women in the top 20, overtaking Russia.
But her career did not work out due to a shoulder injury, while Mona is doing pretty well so far. She also prefers to create more herself on the court and has enough powerful blows... Plus, she has a pretty powerful serve, although not too stable yet.
In 2012, Bartel won her first title at a tournament in Hobart, but perhaps this is not her main achievement. The German woman managed to impose the fight on Victoria Azarenka herself twice this year. Few people succeeded, and Barthel twice forced Victoria to give her all. The first time it happened was in the second round at Indian Wells. At first, Mona was losing by one wicket, but she managed to turn the tide of the match, and at the end of the third set Azarenka was already one step away from defeat. A similar situation developed in the quarterfinals of the competition in Stuttgart. In both cases, the first racket of the world in the endings turned out to be stronger. So far, Bartel simply does not have enough experience, but over time she will gain it and become even more dangerous.
The sixth racket in Germany is Sarah Groener, who is a hermaphrodite, but in terms of tennis she has achieved little so far, so there is no reason to talk about her in more detail yet. As for the listed magnificent five German women, there are quite a few unites of them in addition to their nationality - they are young, promising, prefer attack to defense, and none of them has yet conquered a big peak. Germany has a great generation of tennis players. They have already come out on top in terms of the number of women in the top 20, overtaking Russia, which dominated by this indicator. last years, but now the Russian women have a very serious competitor.
The draw for the new season of the Fed Cup by BNP Paribas 2019 took place in the ITF London office on July 24, the press service of the Belarusian Tennis Federation (BTF) reports.
Due to its position in the third line of the world ranking, the women's national team of Belarus was among the seeded teams and was in the same basket with the Czech Republic, the USA and France. Teams from Australia, Belgium, Germany and Romania could become the likely rival.
As a result, the draw, as at the beginning of this year, determined the tennis players of Germany as the rivals of the Belarusians. The 1st round match of the World Group will take place in February 2019, only now - in Germany. The winner of this pair will advance to the semifinals, and the loser will fight to maintain registration among the 8 strongest national teams in the world.
Next year, the Federation Cup will be played for the 57th time. The tournament is considered the largest international team competition in women's tennis. The Belarusian national team has been participating in it since 1994. During this time Belarusian tennis players held 100 international meetings, in which they won 70 victories.
In 2017, the Belarusian team made its debut in the World Group and immediately made it to the final, creating a real sensation. The Belarusians beat their rivals from the Netherlands and Switzerland on their home courts, and only in the final, with an absolute full house at the Chizhovka Arena, in a bitter struggle, they lost to the titled US team - 2: 3.
In February of this year, the Belarusian national team did not cope with the German tennis players in the quarterfinals, however, in the match for the right to remain among the best national teams in the world, the girls won a home victory over the Slovakian team - 3: 2. Arina Sobolenko and Aleksandra Sasnovich brought one point each, and Vera Lapko and Lydia Morozova won the decisive third point in the doubles match.
Thus, for the third year in a row, Belarusian athletes will compete in the World Group, where they will fight for the most prestigious women's tennis team trophy.
German tennis players have been participating in the Federation Cup since 1963, when the very first drawing of this prestigious tournament took place.
For 56 years, they twice raised the main trophy over their heads, becoming champions in 1987 and 1992.
Over the years, such stars as Steffi Graf, Anke Huber, Helga Nissen-Masthoff and Renata Tomanova have helped to achieve the success of the German national team.
In the 2018 season, the German national team beat Belarus 3: 2 in the 1st round of the World Group at the Chizhovka Arena hard, and lost to the Czech team in the semifinals - 1: 4.
The team captain Jens Gerlach has one of the strongest squads in recent years: Angelik Kerber (No. 4 WTA), Julia Görges (No. 10 WTA), Tatiana Maria (No. 81 WTA), Andrea Petkovic (No. 91 WTA), Karina Witthoeft ( No. 100 WTA), Anna-Lena Grönefeld (No. 24 WTA doubles ranking) and several other top-class tennis players.
Now the German national team is on the 5th line of the world ranking.
The final composition of the opponents will be determined 10 days before the start of the international meeting.