This is the first in a four-part series of articles about the abundance of power-baseliners in professional tennis today, the absence of other styles of play, and what this means for the game.
Boris Becker’s victory in the 1985 Wimbledon championships was remarkable in many ways. He was the first unseeded player to win the title, the first German, and at 17 years and 7 months, he was at the time the youngest-ever Grand Slam champion.
More than any of this, Becker’s win ushered in a style of play that was seemingly destined to take over the game. Players of this style were repeatedly referred to (and often derisively) as “big servers,” the implication being that they could do little else; that serving alone took them to the top of the sport.
Truly, for most of these players, the serve was the biggest gun in their arsenal: Becker’s huge first service
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