Becker's first set (only 10 points lost in 22 minutes) was so violently destructive that it even eclipsed the memory of Arthur Ashe's blazing first set against Rod Laver in a semi-final 20 years ago. And one had wondered if Becker's physical and emotional resources might have drained by Lendl. We know the answer now. Becker's early assault on Edberg brought to mind the book Caitlin Thomas wrote, in a vastly different context, about the ``leftover life'' she had to live after Dylan's death. Becker was fairly bursting with leftover life. He hit so hard that he might reasonably have been charged with contempt of court.

That was why the first set went the way it did. Poor Edberg was like a sapling bending in a gale. He was volleying under such fearsome stress that, inevitably, he was often forced into error or prodded over the net the kind of shot that invited terminal consequences.

That was how it went on, except that Becker became more evidently human and Edberg more evidently the kind of player who has won three grand-slam titles on grass. Had Edberg been more consistent with his first service, it might have been different. But Edberg's confidence in his volleying had been so eroded that even the easier volleys became a mite tentative.

You know how it is in cricket: survive an over from a dangerously fast bowler and the spinner at the other end may then catch you napping. Or in rock-climbing: nerves frayed by awesome challenges to the adhesive qualities of fingers and toes, one then finds the easier pitches unusually difficult. Edberg, mind you, played so well that he had chances to take Becker to a fourth set and possibly a fifth: and even the Leimen Colossus has to tire some time. In the second set three winners on the backhand and one on the forehand gave Edberg a break to 6-5. Serving for the set, he reached 40-love: three set points.

Becker's virile response a mixture of his own winning shots and Edberg's volleying errors under stress was to win 12 of the next 13 points. That not only took Becker to 6-all. It also took him through the tie-break like a sudden wind. Two sets up.

Edberg was not done for yet. In the third set he had three break points for a 2-0 lead. Becker had two break points in the next game, but his authority was in question. As for the soulful-looking Edberg, it was always difficult to tell what he was thinking. He could see a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel: but the tunnel was awfully long and awfully noisy.

Edberg tried everything, including lobs but at such moments Becker's bounding vigour raised images of a rocket hurtling off a launching pad. Becker was having one of those days when he appears to be even bigger and stronger than he is. Men like Becker ate better than most in the days when our remote ancestors had to hunt and catch and kill before they could sit down to dinner. But Becker was not merely strong-armed and acrobatic. He was cool and cute, too, notably when he joined Edberg in sporadic, delicate explorations of the short angles. Becker also had a little luck, as we all do on those well remembered days when all the right things are happening.

What mattered was that at four-all in the third set Becker hit three fierce winners to put Edberg love-40 down. Refusing to read the writing on the wall, Edberg fought back to deuce: whereupon, with perverse obeisance to the laws of anticlimax, he missed a backhand volley and, horror of horrors, served a double-fault.

That more or less closed the case for the Federal Republic. With Becker serving for the match at 5-4, a reprieve for Edberg was no more likely than a streaker in Midhurst. Becker went to 30-love. Edberg, brave to the last, pinned him back to 30-all. But two lambent services finished it, whereupon Becker threw his racket high into the crowd. It had served him well. He did not need it any more.

What a great day it had been for Graf, for Becker, and for West Germany: a day that cast into the shadows our memories of the previous afternoon, when Becker had come from behind to beat Lendl over five sets in a match that was a classic of its kind.

Lendl can seldom have served and volleyed so well for so long. But he lost three service games with double-faults, his service returns were not in the Becker class, and Lendl played too much to Becker's backhand. Becker played some glorious backhands, his second service kept him going when the first was wayward, and in the forecourt he covered the width of the net better than Lendl did.

But it was such an arduous match that we had to ask ourselves how much Becker would have left, yesterday. We found out. So did Edberg.