WIMBLEDON : For Men’s Final, Call It the All Germany Club

WIMBLEDON, England —  Breakfast at Wimbledon here today will be weisswurst and strudel. Pull a chair up to your TV set and have a little with your strawberries and cream.

It is German day here, veteran Boris Becker versus newcomer Michael Stich, in the men’s singles final. Wimbledon usually is, by its very international nature, country versus country. Today, it will be town versus town, Leiman versus Elmshorn, an intramural scrimmage. It is a match made in heaven for Germany, which knocked down a wall for the sake of brotherhood not long ago and is now making the world’s most-famous tennis court into a family reunion.

“One thing is true,” Becker said Friday, after winning his way into the final, “Michael and I have become quite close over the last 10 days.”

Whether that is, indeed, true is the subject of some speculation, since it is well known here that Stich complained about Becker’s late arrival for a recent Davis Cup match and Becker, a virtual god in his country, did not take well to being criticized by a commoner.

For the moment, though, that is being treated like water under the London Bridge, and each is paying proper homage to the nationalistic positives of an all-German final at Wimbledon, especially on the day after Germany’s Steffi Graf won the women’s singles.

Less excited about this country cousins stuff is NBC, which prays for ratings bonanzas along the lines of Becker versus Stefan Edberg--who played in the past three finals--or John McEnroe, Jimmy Connors or Andre Agassi versus anybody. For the American TV audience, today’s final may merely add up to Becker versus Michael Who?

Actually, Stich is better known than was a young, unseeded 17-year-old German named Becker, who came to Wimbledon in 1985 and conquered it like few before.

Stich, 11 months Becker’s junior, appears to be less flamboyant. Yet he has made his way quickly through the world rankings from No. 795 in 1987 to No. 7 entering Wimbledon. He was seeded No. 6 here, and he has made it to two consecutive Grand Slam tournament semifinals, losing at the French Open to eventual champion Jim Courier.

Stich’s game is a natural for grass surfaces. He is a lanky 6 foot 4 and he fires aces at the same speed and the same rate as Becker. Going into today’s final, Becker has hit 85 aces in the tournament and Stich 83, the top two figures. Both have serves in the 120-m.p.h. range.

Stich has been playing in grass-court tournaments for only two years, and in his first one, the Queen’s Club in London in 1989, he extended Ivan Lendl to three sets before losing. Afterward, he was quoted as saying that Lendl probably will never win at Wimbledon because he doesn’t quite know how to handle himself on grass, an assessment that has certainly held true. “I just like to serve and volley and play that kind of game,” Stich said. “I think grass is a very good game for serves, but I think you can’t learn it.”

Indeed, both Stich and Becker seem to be naturals on the green stuff, or in the case of Wimbledon’s battered Centre Court, the brown stuff.

Becker’s semifinal victory over David Wheaton gave him a 73-10 record on grass, best of anybody on the tour. He has won 24 of 26 matches on Centre Court, losing only to Edberg in the finals in 1988 and 1990. Edberg lost his semifinal to Stich Friday.

Becker will be seeking his fifth Grand Slam title. He won three times here, won the U.S. Open in 1989 and won the Australian Open this year. But to the man they affectionately call “Boom Boom” in the tennis world, there is nothing like Wimbledon, both being here and winning.

“Every year, there is something special about this tournament for me,” Becker said. “Every year I say I can’t believe I made it to the final, won it the year before, because it is so tough--you have to win seven matches--and then once I start to play I don’t think about it anymore.

“Then, all of a sudden, I’m there on Sunday in the final, and I surprise myself every year, really, that I’m coming out on top. Why is that? Well, I’m trying to explain it for a couple of years. I really can’t put it into words.”

However, both Stich and Becker were prodded by the media to say some words about this matchup.

“It’s not that I am in the shadow of Boris,” Stich said. “Boris is not in your way when you want to play good tennis. It’s just up to yourself to do that, and I did that.

“He is the best tennis player in Germany, and he did a lot in the last years. . . . Still, everybody can try to play his best tennis.”

Becker rejected the thought that Stich might have idolized him and therefore would have a tough time playing him.

“No, he’s a different kind of a guy,” Becker said. “He’s a confident man. I don’t think so, that I was his big idol when he was young.”

So, when they turn on the cameras this morning, it will be simply Boom Boom Becker versus Slam Slam Stich. And even for those who care not in the least where these two players are from, there will be the expectation of some high-caliber, hard-hitting, grass-court tennis.

Friday, Becker was asked about his sore thigh, and about whether it had ever gotten bad enough in his semifinal match with Wheaton for him to consider bowing out. His blue eyes got wide with amazement, and he recalled that he left this tournament with an injury only once before, as a 16-year-old in 1984.

“They had to carry me out that time, off of Court Two,” he said, “and that would have been the case today also.”