To celebrate the closing of the current Grandstand, with a new Grandstand stadium set to debut in the southwest corner of the grounds in 2016, USOpen.org is taking a look back at some of the greatest singles matches in Grandstand history. Here, we look back at the 1987 classic between world No. 4 Boris Becker and 15th-seeded American Brad Gilbert.
Boris Becker came into Flushing Meadows in September 1987 as one of the legitimate favorites to put an end to Ivan Lendl’s dominance on the New York concrete.
While two-time defending champion Lendl was in his prime – he had reached the final in seven of the past eight Grand Slam events he had played and was 32-3 in his previous five trips to the Big Apple – it was 19-year-old German wunderkind Becker who was making some of the biggest waves on the tour.
Becker, who became the youngest Grand Slam men’s singles champion when he won Wimbledon in 1985 as a 17-year-old, was expected to make a deep run at the US Open, alongside other perennial contenders Stefan Edberg and Mats Wilander. But while Edberg strolled through to the semis and Wilander pushed eventual winner Lendl to four sets in the final, Becker’s struggles on the Grand Slam stage continued.
Upset by Aussie Wally Masur in the fourth round in Melbourne in January and by another Australian Peter Doohan in the second round at Wimbledon, Becker this time fell to Brad Gilbert, the man who rallied from a set down to beat him in the semifinals in Washington four weeks earlier.
Leading by two sets and a break in the third, Becker looked to be cruising to a quarterfinal showdown with Jimmy Connors. But consecutive double faults serving at 3-1 cost Becker the chance to consolidate his advantage and California native rode the cheers of the partisan crowd to his first career Slam quarterfinal in a 2-6, 6-7, 7-6, 7-5, 6-1 marathon victory that lasted four hour and 17 minutes.
