His name is included in the “golden” book of world tennis. Boris Becker won millions of euros and became an icon of world tennis. But a conviction for violating British insolvency laws brought the “bad boy” of sports into the world of prisons. To survive, he stated in an interview, he needed “tough guys” to protect himself. From the zenith he was at the very bottom and now, after his release from prison, the former tennis player is trying to build what he calls the “third chapter” of his life.

Boris Becker was born in 1967 in Lemen, Germany, and his parents decided to name him after the Russian writer and Nobel Prize winner Boris Pasternak. Thanks to the tennis court built by his architect father, racquet became his primary game as a child. At the age of seven, his parents enrolled him in the club, and at the age of 10 he became the champion of the German youth tennis tournament. Very quickly, his talent became known, and the German federation allocated at that time more than 1,000,000 marks for his education. Very quickly, young Boris turned out to be … those who believed in him turned white.

In 1985, he wrote the first golden page in his history by winning the title at Wimbledon, and became at that time the youngest player to lift the prestigious trophy. Titles slowly began to follow each other. The following year, he connected the cups with Wimbledon. In the final, he defeated the No. 1 of that era, Ivan Lendl. By the age of 22, the boy with “golden hair” won all the titles, and a luxurious life became synonymous with his name.

Explosive nature on and off the courts

An explosive character, on and off the courts, with adventures that would be the envy of the hero of the book Doctor Zhivago, written by the Russian Nobel laureate, namesake of Boris. Becker considered himself an idol, lived in luxury and often sought to provoke. In the 90s, he and his wife Barbara Feltus posed nude. While he was expecting his second child, in the toilet of a luxury restaurant, he became pregnant with Angela Ermakova. The divorce cost him 15,000,000, and … a decline began.

Gradually, sponsors stopped investing in the “bad blond”. But he himself was not interested in tennis. He may have made it to the Wimbledon final for the seventh time in 1995, but he had no… thirst to win it. This is the year he will win his last ATP world title. Next year, he will add to his collection the latest Grand Slam trophy (Australian Open). That same year, he beat Pete Sampras at the Stuttgart Masters and Sampras said, “Becker is the best tennis player I’ve ever faced.”

During his career, “Boom-Boom”, as he was known, won six Grand Slam titles, 49 singles titles and 15 doubles titles, among others. A special place among his trophies is the gold medal of the Barcelona Olympics, in doubles (1992). “By the age of 22, I mastered everything. So I was constantly looking for something to do next, and it was not in tennis,” he said in an interview.

Adventures with Justice

In 1996, while he was an active tennis player, the first investigations into the athlete’s taxes began. The ball… flew over. In 2002, the German authorities will force him to pay more than $ 2,000,000 for the fact that while he declared himself a resident of Monaco, he lived in Munich, and on October 24, 2002, a German court sentenced him to two years of probation. In 2003, he will publish his autobiography, opening … a window into the details of his personal life. He said that from the early years of his career, he became addicted to sleeping pills and painkillers, and then consumed large amounts of alcohol as an antidote to loneliness. In the book, which became a bestseller, he even described the details of his sex life. This is the time when he works as a tennis commentator, plays poker, starred in television series. From 2014 to 2016 he was a member of Djokovic’s training team.

In 2017, he will declare bankruptcy. His adventures with justice will continue in the coming years, and he will be forced to auction most of his trophies in order to pay off his creditors. His debts exceeded £50,000,000. He appeared in a London court wearing a Wimbledon tie, but the judges were not impressed. His lawyer, Jonathan Laidlaw, stated that Boris spent money on his children, not on luxuries, but did not convince anyone. On April 29, 2022, he will be found guilty on four counts and sent to prison in the UK. His booking was completed on December 15, 2022, and shortly thereafter, he flew on a private jet to Germany.

From luxury to prison

“Boom-Boom” spent almost eight months in a British prison and went from absolute luxury to another world. “The experience was completely different from what you see in the movies. Every day you fight for your survival. I survived because I’m cool. Being a famous tennis player means nothing when you are surrounded by murderers, rapists, drug dealers. I needed ‘tough’ boys for protection,” he said in an interview with BBC Radio 5 Live Breakfast, among other things, but declined to elaborate. “There is a code of honor that one cannot talk about prison outside the prison. I have a lot of respect for the prisoners.” Boris Becker admitted that he made many mistakes in managing his finances and made the wrong decisions.

Now the famous “bad boy” of world tennis looks – and declares – is ready to write the third chapter of his life. It remains to be seen whether the mistakes of the past will be repeated in this chapter. “I learned how to flip the game in the 5th set,” he claims.