Unseeded teenager Boris Becker faced the eighth seed Kevin Curren in the 1985 Wimbledon final.
At the beginning of 1984, 16-year-old German Boris Becker was ranked 563 in the world. By the end of the year, shortly after turning 17, he was on the cusp of the top 50, making his double-digit rankings breakthrough after a quarterfinal showing at the Australian Open.
The year ahead promised even greater things ahead for the teenager with the thundering serve. Leading up to Wimbledon in 1985, the teenager won his first title at the Queen’s Club tournament in London, a victory that brought him up to 20 in the world. Unseeded at the year’s second major and undaunted, Becker serve and volleyed his way to the championship match—diving for balls over the fortnight that might have been out of reach to many, while raining down serves his competitors were seemingly lucky to get a racquet on.
In the final, he’d face the veteran Kevin Curren, who also possessed a devastating serve and had reached his first career major final only a few months’ prior at the ‘84 Australian Open, where Becker made his breakthrough.
Coming into the championship match, Curren had posted some rather significant victories over the course of the tournament, namely topping defending champion John McEnroe and two-time winner Jimmy Connors in back-to-back matches. However, he got off to a rough start in the final, losing his opening service game, which was all the advantage Becker needed to take the first set 6-3.
In the second set, the two eventually found themselves in a tiebreak, and Curren managed to win it 7-4 to level the match. As the two held serve through the first six games of the third set, Curren struck first, taking a 4-3 lead. But as he’d demonstrated multiple times in his young career, Becker elevated his game when his back was against the wall, breaking right back in the next game. In the ensuing tiebreaker, Becker completed his comeback, taking it 7-3.
Curren had a chance to get back in the match in the fourth, getting two break points early on. Becker erased them with two unreturnable serves and in a near mirror image of the first set, secured his own break advantage soon thereafter. Once again, that would be all he would need: At 5-4, he calmly served out the match, hammering home one final serve that made him the youngest male Grand Slam champion in history and the first unseeded winner at Wimbledon.
1
By defeating McEnroe and Connors in the quarterfinals and semis, respectively, Curren became the first-ever player to beat both of them in the same Grand Slam tournament.
3
Becker was the third German to reach the men’s final after Gottfried von Cramm accomplished the feat three straight years in the 1930s and Wilhelm Bungert in 1967.
4
On his way to the title, Becker defeated four of the 16 seeds—including three in the top 10.
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