Becker says no quick revival for German men's tennis

Feb 17, 2012, 16:02 GMT

Rotterdam, Netherlands - German men's tennis may have a long time to wait for any revival of the glory days of two decades ago, former tennis icon Boris Becker said Friday.

'Unfortunately, the news is not good,' said the 44-year-old who broke through as a teenager with the 1985 and 1986 Wimbledon titles and set his native land alight with tennis fever along with Steffi Graf on the women's side.

'We don't have the next big star waiting in the wings. We are doing well with the women, with four who really seem to want to win on the big stage (Andrea Petkovic, Sabine Lisicki, Julia Goerges and Angelique Kerber).

'And the DTB (federation) has a new president, he's younger and in tune with sport today. I believe we can look forward to a much brighter future. We can hopefully show the public how beautiful tennis can be an get some of our tournaments back in coming years.'

The businessman and television commentator said that he remains puzzled by the lack of breakthrough teenagers in the current game, the opposite of his time when youngsters including himself, Borg, Mats Wilander and McEnroe were all winning the majors.

'I don't know if the junior programmes were better then, or the coaching was better or what. We don't know what has caused this change, there are so many potential factors.

'The (six-hour) Australian Open final (won by Novak Djokovic over Rafael Nadal) brought a lot of new fans to tennis.

'The sport is in a good state, but the game has changed. When I played we didn't have the big four, we had the big 10.

'If you looked at a draw in the quarter-finals and semis there were mainly Grand Slam winners, Now, we look to see where are Djokovic, Nadal, Federer and Andy Murray.'

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