In “Turning Points,” we take a look at the pivotal moments that changed the course of sets, matches and championship runs.
In this edition, we look back at a crucial moment from Boris Becker's 1989 title run in New York.
Played across a court that is 78 feet long and 27 feet wide, the most memorable tennis points often come down to fractions of inches.
Just ask Boris Becker.
It’s been more than three decades since Becker escaped a second-round US Open tangle with unseeded American Derrick Rostagno. But even today, Becker’s ball that clipped the net on Rostagno’s second match point is arguably the most famous of his 1989 tournament run that culminated in a championship win over world No. 1 Ivan Lendl and his first, and only, US Open title.
After more than three hours and 40 minutes, an absorbing match full of twists and turns ultimately came down to the finest of margins less than the width of a tennis ball.
Trailing by two sets to one and having already saved one match point in the fourth-set tiebreak, Becker kicked a second serve to the Rostagno backhand. The Californian sliced the ball down the line, coming into the net behind his shot as Becker sprung to his right and whipped a forehand cross court. But the ball clipped the tape and popped up, handcuffing Rostagno, who was otherwise in position to make a match-winning volley into an open court.
If the ball is a fraction higher, Rostagno has the easiest of put-aways to upset the No. 2 seed. A fraction lower, and Becker’s passing shot doesn’t make it over the net at all. A fraction slower, and Rostagno has time to adjust to a ball that has changed direction by 90 degrees.
“In a match like that, you get many shots sometimes in your favor, sometimes against you,” Becker told reporters after the match. “But definitely, if you get a shot like that on a match point, that’s quite sweet.
“I was hoping that he was going down the line, but he read my shot. He was there to hit the volley, and the only chance to win the point was almost to hit the tape. When you’re up two match points in a tiebreaker and you get a shot like that, it breaks your spirit.”
On this day, the fractions inside Louis Armstrong Stadium fell the way of the German.
Rostagno took the opening set behind breaks in the fourth and sixth games, and he went up two sets to love after winning the second-set tiebreak.
Becker broke twice in the third set to cut the deficit in half, before surviving the two match points that changed the course of the match and ultimately became one of Becker’s defining moments of the fortnight.
“That was the turning point in the match,” said Rostagno, who ironically won the second point of that fourth-set tiebreak with a similar net-cord winner that hopped over Becker’s racquet. “He probably had the feeling that nothing could go wrong after that. If that didn’t use up all his luck, then nothing could.
“Obviously, I am sad that things didn't turn my way. I am going to go back and watch the match on replay. I'm sure one of those times I'm going to win it.”
Becker went on to break Rostagno in each of his first two service games of the fifth set before eventually prevailing, 1-6, 6-7, 6-3, 7-6, 6-3.
Eleven days later, Becker won the sport’s ultimate prize, with victory over Lendl for what would be his fourth of six Grand Slam men’s singles crowns.
