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My first Wimbledon: SI editor chronicles first All England Club visit - SI.com

At that point, the only tennis tournament I had ever been to was the Carter Barron Amphitheater in Washington, D. C. during the dead of a stifling east coast summer, and that won no favors with me. There was nothing fun about watching two people... Even with the wily on-court antics of McEnroe, Jimmy Connors and Yannick Noah for entertainment, I still always likened tennis to ballroom dancing—a posh recreational exercise with rarely any hype or rhythm. Yet for nearly two weeks 30 years ago, I sat on the couch with my dad and watched The Championships at Wimbledon in awe. I was amazed by all of the sophistication: the refined grass courts, the all-white attire, the British dignitaries sitting in the stands, the strawberries and cream—show me a kid who wouldn’t like a little dessert while cheering on their sports... In 1985 Boris Becker was a brash, unseeded, 17-year-old German phenom who took the sports world by storm with a four set win over Kevin Curren (a 27-year-old South African who beat both McEnroe and Jimmy Connors to reach the final) to become the... Although just a teenager, Becker approached the grass courts at the All England Club as if the tournament was owed to him. He didn’t yell (at least not yet), he didn’t make lewd gestures and he wasn’t a spectacle.