At 57, the German Boris Becker You can say that he lived more than one life. Youngest champion in the story of Wimbledonhe won six Grand Slams, was number 1 in the world and, later, spent eight months in prison. From glory to jailnow he is a TV commentator and even the luxury of being a jury in stand-up shows. Redo his life and tells him in an interview with The world In Madrid, where he came as a jury of the Laureus Awards: “I scared sometimes and paid my mistakes, but I have always learned much more from my defeats than from my victories”, reflexiona Becker.
Becker was sentenced in April 2022 to two and a half years in prison after being convicted of four charges under the British bankruptcy law by not declaring part of his assets correctly in his bankruptcy procedure. After less than eight months in the London prison in Wandswort, he was released in December of that year, after 231 days between bars. He immediately traveled to Germany, after being deported by the United Kingdom.
The German continues: “It happened to me in tennis and it has happened to me in life. Also with jail. when you have as much success as young as I had, you are for granted that you will always do wellthat you are invulnerable. And I didn’t. I had to learn that most people do not win, that life is difficult. So Having a loss as hard as going to prison was the alarm clock to change. I made a much better man than it was before entering, ”he says.
That detention and subsequent income in jail was the corollary of some turbulent years. The former tennis player was the lid of sensationalist newspapers for his marital scandals and their economic problems. “I had a total loss of privacy that would not be desired or my worst enemy. They were very difficult years for me, living like this is unbearable. It was a nightmare, but in the end it is part of the process and now I am at peace with life, ”says Becker. And he postulates:“ Everything that happened to me is a consequence of my successes. If I had not won Wimbledon at age 17, if it hadn’t been number 1 in the world, If it had simply been an average tennis player, he would not have suffered all those problems. They are the two faces of the same currency and now I assume it, but I have spent moments when I just wanted to disappear. ”
Anyway, there is former number 1 to regret the price you had to pay after winning everything. “I don’t feel resentment towards my past, on the contrary”Becker boasts. And he adds:“ I look at my life with great pride. It has been intense, I did not know that so many things could be lived in 57 years. After a while, tennis became something boring because it knew exactly what I had to do to win. Once you did it again and again, there is no mystery, it bored me and wanted to try new things. And I did that. In some right and in others I made a serious mistakebut I had experiences that I never thought I could have and I’m still here to teach my four children without having to learn from textbooks, ”he says.
In the interview with The worldBecker talks about his children again, his family. His interracial relationship with Barbara Feltus comes to the scene. And Becker is planted: “I have made family decisions that have had public impactbut that seems absolutely normal because I am blind to the color of the skin. I have mixed children and I see that they suffer the same things that his mother suffered. I thought we had learned from the past, but unfortunately it is not so. As a society we make the same mistakes as 20, 40 or 60 years ago. It is very disappointing. The question is why, ”he questions. He rechanges it about the causes of that phenomenon is obvious.
And the answer surprises: “Without getting very political, I think that the quality of current politicians is not up to what we had 40 years ago When a great Europe was created. In Germany, for example, there was a great awareness that what had happened in our past could not be repeated and, nevertheless, here we are with an extreme right party [AfD] taking millions of votes. And it is not only in Germany, there are many Western countries that have not learned from the mistakes of the past and we live a dangerous moment in that regard. Honestly, I grew up having the hope that we would do a better world than that of our grandparents and end all this type of movements, But I was wrong. We are again at the same point”.
Becker says that after being champion in Wimbledon “There was no going back”. That future as an architect – his father’s profession – that his family imagined was behind. It was transformed, almost without proposing it, an elite tennis player. Of the best on the planet. “Fortunately, then there were no social networks. Imagine an almost unknown young German winning two Wimbledon followed with 17 and 18 years … It was a shock for me. My life and my world were already a madness like that, But now they would have been absolutely unbearable“, Says the former German tennis player, who left the racket sideways at 32.
coach of Novak Djokovic Between 2014 and 2016, Becker responds to the consultation on an eventual choice between Serbian, Roger Federer O Rafael Nadalthe greatest of recent years. “I call you the three Goat (” Greatest of All time “, in English) for something, each one has been the greatest in their own way. If I had to explain its historical importance I would say that Djokovic is the most successful, Federer the most popular and Nadal the most feared. If Rafa touched you in Roland Garros, you knew there was nothing to do. Overcoming him there has been the only impossible of a sport where everything is possible, “says Becker.
And the consultation on the best Spanish tennis player of the moment comes: Carlos Alcaraz. Can it be Nadal’s successor? His answer: “That is a very difficult pressure to carry because Rafa there is only one. Carlos is leaving his own mark in his own way. It is still very young and the best is yet to come, but it is impossible to guess how long an elite will be maintained in the elite. I want Carlos to play 10 or 15 more years because for me he is the most exciting tennis player in the world right now, but the Spaniards, especially journalists, They have to be careful and not judge it so hard every time you lose a party Because he is a very different player from the one who was Nadal. Carlos has more natural talent, but Rafa’s heart has not had it and will have any other athlete in history. Carlos is fantastic, Novak [Djokovic] y Roger [Federer] They are legends, but Rafa was at a different level of competitiveness. If in a tournament you saw you crossed with Nadal … Good luck, friend“.
