Everyone's Wild over Bobele

By Richard Schickel

On Monday, if we are to believe his manager's estimate, he gave 18 interviews, mostly to reporters who did not forget to bring, along with their tape recorders, that other essential of the up-to-date journalist's trade, a checkbook. Then he flew off to Monte Carlo to visit his money, for after all a tax shelter can spring a leak if your attention is too long diverted.

By Friday he was back in Leimen, the small West German town (pop. 17,000) where he is the biggest thing to happen since they opened the cement factory. The good burghers turned out 8,000 strong for a motorcade. There was a cannon salute and a trumpet fanfare, and then a town-hall reception. Everything was golden: the commemorative ring and the specially processed album by the Deep Purple rock group that he received, the distinguished-visitors book he signed. Down the street, at the Helmut Weber bakery, which displays in its windows the scuffed shoes and muddy togs he wore the day of his famous victory, the bakers whipped up thousands of "Bobele" pretzels. They are B-shaped, and their name is an acronym standing for Boris Becker of Leimen. He does not receive any royalty on their sales. Not yet, anyway.

But who can say what the future holds for Becker? No question about it, he is an authentic phenomenon on at least three indisputable counts. He is, at 17, the youngest man ever to win Wimbledon, which may be media frazzled but is still by irrational common consent the world's premier tennis tournament. He is also the first unseeded player to do so and the first from Germany. Other unheralded players have used this great stage to announce their arrival at the threshold of greatness (Bjorn Borg, who reached the quarter finals in 1973 at 17; John McEnroe, who gained the semis at 18 in 1977). On the other hand, think of Chris Lewis, who made it to the finals in 1983, and last year's quarterfinalist Paul Annacone and semifinalist Pat Cash, who have yet to convert their moments of glory into a permanent condition.

Will the Baby Boomer's Monte Carlo stash someday rival the $60 million Borg is alleged to have there, or will he become just another tennis courtier, serving (and volleying to) its true monarchs? The problem of predicting arises from the ambiguities inherent in any Wimbledon victory and from the mysteries inherent in reading any adolescent's psyche. Since the U.S. Open ceased using grass, and since the major players pretty much abandoned the Australian Open, the computer rankings on which Wimbledon's seedings are based do not have adequate input regarding abilities on what is now the exotic tennis surface. That is why, in recent years, many of the top seeds leave the tournament suddenly and why one or two strong-serving kids, whose hot spell comes upon them here rather than in darkest Stuttgart, find themselves on Centre Court and on international TV. Indeed, the tournament's size favors heedless youth. In a draw containing 128 players, the eventual victor must win seven matches in two weeks, some of which are bound to be played on ill-kempt outer courts, some of which are bound to be interrupted by rain or darkness. The physically tireless have the edge in these circumstances. And so do those who can avoid dank brooding on fate's fickleness.

There you have a capsule description of Becker, the tangle-footed teenager whose room is often a mess, who forgets to carry money in his pocket and who boogies through life to rock tunes pumped directly brain ward by his stereo headset. His was a Wimbledon of tie breakers, comebacks and an injured ankle, all blithely handled. In the finals, it was Kevin Curren, a decade Becker's senior, who was a bundle of nerves as his percentage of successful first serves (47%) proved. He also seemed befuddled by an opponent who could go all out for everything because he had youthful energy to burn and nothing to save it for. As Becker's quarter-final victim, Henri LeConte says, "His age is his strength, 'cause he never thinks about the pressure. He just plays, hits the ball, wins, says thank you and goodbye."

That strength will be the first to desert him as he grows up. It is in fact already a potential weakness. "A dickschaedel, " his coach Guenther Bosch calls him, meaning he is, not to put too fine a point on it, pigheaded. That imparts to his game its never-say-die spirit, but may also interfere with improving it physically and tactically. Ion Tiriac, his other mentor, insists Becker is too slow afoot but has trouble imposing on him a corrective training regimen. "He's very stubborn. You have to convince him of everything." In fact, it took Tiriac and Bosch three months just to change the mechanics of Becker's serve so he could follow it more quickly to the net. Still, as Becker says, "I'm mad about the game." And as Bosch says, "He's crazy in a positive way."

If Becker's lunacy is a sign of authentic genius, not just a teenage hormonal fire storm, he could find his way to that imaginary land where Borg plays Tilden, and Laver goes against Budge, in the dream draws of endlessly fantasizing fans. For now, though, he is just a gaudy note in the annals of a game that delights in its overnight successes, then makes up its mind about authentic greatness with becoming, almost anachronistic, slowness. --By Richard Schickel. Reported by Steven Holmes/London and John Kohan/Leimen

With reporting by Reported by Steven Holmes/London, John Kohan/Leimen