DUESSELDORF, May 22: Boris Becker's French Open cancellation on Monday is no surprise because ever since a miserable rainy Thursday night in 1995, he must have been fed up with chasing his maiden clay court title, in general, and the only Grand Slam title still eluding him, in particular.

Just a few weeks earlier, Becker had come closer to a clay court victory than ever before, but he wasted two fourth-set match points en route to a five-set defeat to Austrian Thomas Muster in the Monte Carlo final.

Thursday, June 1, 1995 was a rainy day at the French Open, and no one believed any player would make it onto court once Michael Stich had completed a five-set win over Arnaud Boetsch.

The crowds were leaving the Staid Roland Garros as dusk came earlier than usual, but suddenly the rain subsided and at around 1900 hours, Becker was ordered to start his third-round game with Romanian Adrian Voinea.

What followed was inevitable: Voinea won the first set, then also the second, before Becker managed to convince the umpire that it was too dark and that the match should be suspended until the following day. Meanwhile the likes of former two-time French Open champs Jim Courier and Sergi Bruguera continued for almost another hour on othercourts without complaints.

``It is unbelievable they sent me out to play. I thought I was in the wrong movie,'' complained Becker, who went on to lose the match the following day.He has never returned to Roland Garros since and will most likely never do so again.

Last year, Becker stated a thigh injury for staying away, and on Monday he blamed an undisclosed injury for missing the 1997 edition kicking off in six days.

Now that he has reached the age of 29, playing on clay is simply exhausting for the heavily built Becker, and he has no chance to play his aggressive serve and volley tennis if bad weather makes the court even slower and the balls heavier than usual.

So even the French media remaimed calm yesterday, with the Le Figaro newspaper writing: ``The almost 30-year-old does not feel capable to live through the long rallies necessary to fare well on this surface''.

Stich, the 1996 French Open runner-up, put it into similar words on Monday when talking about his own possible withdrawal: ``You may be able to beat one of those Spaniards in five sets, but in the next round have to deal with his brother.''

Not that Becker has had no success on the surface at all: He has reached three clay-court finals and was a semi-finalist at Roland Garros in 1987, 1989 and 1991.

But playing in the twilight of his career and coming off a lengthy wrist-injury layoff, Becker seems to be resigned to his clay-court jinx and has now apparently planned his season to peak at the place where it was ignited twelve years ago -- Wimbledon.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.