Boris Franz Becker is a German former world No 1 tennis player.
70 Facts About Boris Becker
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Boris Becker is regarded as one of the greatest tennis players of all time and was featured in the list of Tennis magazine's 40 greatest players on its 40th anniversary in 2006.
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Boris Becker won 64 titles overall, including an Olympic gold medal in doubles in 1992.
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Boris Becker won 49 singles and 15 doubles titles including six Grand Slam singles titles: three Wimbledon Championships, two Australian Opens and one US Open, 13 Masters titles, three year-end championships and leading Germany to back-to-back championship wins in Davis Cup 1988 and 1989.
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Boris Becker is often credited as the pioneer of power tennis with his lightning fast serve and explosive all-court game featuring flying through the air volleys, acrobatic dives, rolls and crushing service returns.
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Boris Becker is among the top ten players with the best win percentages in the history of the ATP Tour.
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Boris Becker has engaged in numerous ventures, including coaching Novak Djokovic for three years, playing poker professionally and working for an online poker company.
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In October 2002, the Munich District Court gave Boris Becker a suspended two-year prison sentence for tax evasion.
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Boris Becker was born in 1967 in Leimen, a town in the German state of Baden-Wurttemberg, the son of Elvira and Karl-Heinz Becker.
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Boris Becker received his secondary education at Helmholtz-Gymnasium in Heidelberg.
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Boris Becker went on to win the South German championship and the first German Youth Tennis Tournament.
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Boris Becker turned professional in 1984, under the guidance of Romanian-born coach Gunther Bosch and Romanian manager Ion Tiriac, and won his first professional doubles title that year in Munich.
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Boris Becker was at that time ranked 20th in ATP ranking, and was unseeded, as at that time Wimbledon did not seed players beyond the top 16.
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Two months after his triumph, Boris Becker became the youngest winner of the Cincinnati Open.
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In 1986, Boris Becker successfully defended his Wimbledon title, defeating No 1 Ivan Lendl in straight sets in the final.
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In 1987 Boris Becker, then ranked 2, lost in the second round of Wimbledon to Peter Doohan, ranked 70.
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Boris Becker contested the Wimbledon final in 1988, where he lost in four sets to Stefan Edberg in a match that marked the start of one of Wimbledon's great rivalries.
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Boris Becker helped West Germany win its first Davis Cup in 1988.
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Boris Becker won the year-end Masters title in New York City, defeating five-time champion Lendl in the final.
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In 1989, Boris Becker won two Grand Slam singles titles, the only year he won more than one.
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Boris Becker helped West Germany retain the Davis Cup, defeating Andre Agassi in the semifinal round.
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In 1990, Boris Becker met Edberg for the third consecutive year in the Wimbledon final, but this time lost in a long five-set match.
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Boris Becker failed to successfully defend his US Open title, losing to Agassi in the semifinals.
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Boris Becker reached the final of the Australian Open for the first time in his career in 1991, where he defeated Lendl to claim the No 1 ranking.
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Boris Becker was ranked No 1 for 12 weeks during 1991 and reached his fourth consecutive Wimbledon final.
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In 1992, Boris Becker won seven tour titles including his second ATP Tour World Championships defeating Jim Courier in four sets.
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Boris Becker won the year-end ATP Tour World Championships for the third and last time in Frankfurt with a straight-set win over Michael Chang in the final.
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Boris Becker defeated Sampras in October 1996 in a five-set final in Stuttgart Masters.
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Boris Becker lost to Sampras in the final of the 1996 ATP Tour World Championships in Hanover.
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Boris Becker saved two match points in the fourth set and held serve 27 consecutive times until he was broken in the penultimate game.
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In 1997, Boris Becker lost to Sampras in the quarterfinals at Wimbledon.
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However, Boris Becker played Wimbledon one more time in 1999, this time losing in the fourth round to Patrick Rafter.
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Boris Becker was most comfortable playing on fast-playing surfaces, particularly grass courts and indoor carpet.
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Boris Becker reached a few finals playing on clay courts, but never won a clay-court tournament in his professional career.
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Boris Becker was close to winning a clay-court tournament in his last final on the surface, when he led Thomas Muster by two sets to love in the 1995 Monte Carlo Open final, and double-faulted on set point in the fourth-set tiebreaker.
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Boris Becker won a record-equalling four singles titles at London's Queen's Club.
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Boris Becker won the other two major international team titles playing for Germany, the Hopman Cup and the World Team Cup.
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Boris Becker is the first male player to appear in 7 Wimbledon finals in the Modern Era, tied with Sampras and Djokovic, and behind the record 12 Wimbledon finals appearances by Federer.
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Boris Becker won singles titles in 14 countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Qatar, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States.
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Boris Becker occasionally plays on the senior tour and in World Team Tennis.
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Boris Becker has worked as a commentator at Wimbledon for the BBC.
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Boris Becker occasionally deviated from his serve-and-volley style to try to out-hit, from the baseline, opponents who normally were at their best while remaining near the baseline.
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Boris Becker never won a top-level singles title on clay, coming closest when holding two match points against Thomas Muster in the final of the 1995 Monte Carlo Open.
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Boris Becker did team up with Michael Stich to win the 1992 men's doubles Olympic gold medal on clay.
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Boris Becker was found guilty by the Munich District Court of deliberately making false statements regarding his place of residence on his personal income tax filings in order to save DM3.3 million.
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Since 2000, Boris Becker has been the principal owner of the tennis division of Volkl Inc.
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Also in 2000, Boris Becker partnered up with the German IT company Pixelpark AG for a joint dot-com investment: Sportgate.
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Boris Becker moved to the United Kingdom from his native Germany in 2012, making London his primary residence.
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Boris Becker furthermore appeared on the second episode of series 16 of the BBC's car show Top Gear as the Star in a Reasonably Priced Car.
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From 2017, as Boris Becker was getting back into tennis punditry on television following a 3-year stint coaching Djokovic, the German began appearing on Eurosport regularly as part of its English-language Grand Slam coverage, often alongside the network's other retired-tennis-players-turned-TV-personalities such as Mats Wilander and Barbara Schett or on his own German-language commentary show Matchball Boris Becker alongside commentator Matthias Stach.
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In May 2022, right after Boris Becker's sentencing to 30 months in jail and initial detention at HM Prison Wandsworth, Eurosport reportedly explored the possibility of setting up a home studio in his prison thus potentially allowing him to participate on the network's French Open coverage.
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On 23 August 2017, Boris Becker was named the head of men's tennis of the German Tennis Federation.
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Boris Becker is a patron of the Elton John AIDS Foundation.
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From November 2007 to mid-May 2013, Boris Becker was a member of the celebrity team for the online poker platform PokerStars, where he participated in professional poker tournaments.
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Boris Becker made his first appearance as a poker amateur at a tournament in Monte Carlo in April 2008.
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In December 2013, Novak Djokovic announced on his website that Boris Becker would become his head coach for the 2014 season.
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On 21 June 2017, Boris Becker was declared bankrupt by the Bankruptcy and Companies Court in London.
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Boris Becker denied to the Neue Zurcher Zeitung that he was "broke" or that he owed former business adviser Hans-Dieter Cleven any money; Cleven filed suit in a Swiss court claiming he was owed $41 million.
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Charles-Armel Doubane, the CAR's Foreign Minister, countered that Boris Becker was "not an official diplomat for the Central African Republic", that the role of attache for sports "does not exist", and that the CAR passport produced by Boris Becker was one of a batch that had been stolen in 2014.
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On 24 June 2019, it was reported that Boris Becker was forced to auction off 82 collectables from his personal collection, including a Goldene Kamera award and his trophy from the 1989 US Open, in order to pay creditors.
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On 8 April 2022, Boris Becker was found guilty of four charges under the Insolvency Act.
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Boris Becker's incarceration commenced at HM Prison Wandsworth within the London Borough of Wandsworth before he was transferred to HM Prison Huntercombe, a facility used to detain foreign criminals.
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Boris Becker was released from prison on 15 December 2022 having served 8 months.
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The Guardian reported in 2009 that in addition to properties in Munich, Monaco and Schwyz, Boris Becker had an apartment in Wimbledon, and possibly still maintained a residence in Miami, to be near his children.
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Boris Becker wrote that Barbara struck him during an argument after he flew to Florida to meet her and discuss the break up of their marriage.
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Boris Becker was granted a divorce on 15 January 2001: Barbara received a $14.4 million settlement, their condominium on Fisher Island, Florida, and custody of their children.
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Boris Becker's lawyers claimed that Ermakova had stolen his sperm and used it to inseminate herself after the encounter.
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In February 2009, Boris Becker announced on the German TV show Wetten, dass.
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In May 2018, Kerssenberg and Boris Becker announced that they had separated after nine years of marriage.
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In July 2019, reports appeared that Boris Becker was dating British model Layla Powell.