Boris Becker: The Life Story Behind Tennis' Teen Champion
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Boris Becker was seventeen years old when he won Wimbledon, and the whole world asked the same question at once: how can a boy do that? He was unseeded, he was unknown outside Germany, and he played with a power and a fearlessness that nobody had seen before in a teenager. He dived for balls, he served like a man twice his age, and he celebrated with a joy that made the crowds fall in love with him. The newspapers called him “Boom Boom”, because his serve boomed and his forehand boomed, and the nickname followed him for the rest of his life. He was the youngest man ever to win Wimbledon, and he was a hero in Germany before he was old enough to vote.
But winning Wimbledon at seventeen is a strange gift, because it gives a boy everything before he has learned how to handle anything. Becker spent the next fifteen years trying to live up to that first victory, and trying to grow up in public, in front of cameras that never left him alone. He won six Grand Slam titles, he became the world number one, and he helped Germany to win the Davis Cup, and he did it all while the world watched his private life, his marriages, his money, and his mistakes. And then, many years after he stopped playing, he lost everything in a different way, when he was declared bankrupt and, in 2022, sent to prison for hiding assets from his creditors. It was a fall that shocked the tennis world, and it was a fall that made his story one of the most human in all of sport.
This is the life of Boris Becker, the boy who won Wimbledon, the man who carried a nation’s hopes, and the person who learned, late and painfully, that fame is not the same as happiness, and that a second chance is possible even after the worst mistakes.
Leimen: A Tennis Centre and a Boy With a Big Serve
Boris Franz Becker was born on 22 November 1967 in Leimen, a small town in West Germany, near Heidelberg. His father, Karl-Heinz Becker, was an architect who built a tennis centre in Leimen, and his mother, Elvira, was a schoolteacher. The family lived above the tennis centre, and young Boris grew up with the sound of tennis balls bouncing below his bedroom window, and with courts that were always there, waiting for him. He started playing the game when he was very young, and he was good at it at once, because he was strong, and because he was not afraid, and because he loved to hit the ball as hard as he could.
He was a big, powerful boy, and his game was built around his serve and his forehand, two shots that he hit with a force that older players found frightening. He dived for balls, throwing his body across the court, a style that became his trademark, and that made crowds gasp, because it looked dangerous, and because it showed how much he wanted to win every point. His coaches tried to teach him to be more careful, but Becker did not want to be careful. He wanted to win, and he was willing to dive, and to fall, and to get up again, as many times as it took.
He was also a boy who loved attention, and who was not shy about it. He was confident, he was charming, and he liked to be the centre of things, and those qualities made him a natural star, even before he was a champion. He played junior tournaments in Germany and in Europe, and he won them, and the German tennis federation began to notice him, and to invest in his future. He was, by the time he was sixteen, the most promising young player in Germany, and the question was not whether he would become a professional, but when, and how good he would be.
He turned professional in 1984, when he was sixteen years old, and he was coached by Gunther Bosch, a Romanian-born coach who had worked with other young players, and who understood how to handle a talented teenager. Bosch taught him discipline, and he taught him how to prepare for matches, and he taught him that talent alone is not enough. Becker listened, and he worked, and he improved quickly, and by the summer of 1985, he was ready for the biggest tournament in the world, even though nobody outside Germany knew his name yet.
Wimbledon 1985: Seventeen and Unseeded
Becker arrived at Wimbledon in the summer of 1985 as an unseeded player, ranked outside the top twenty, and few people expected him to go far. He was seventeen years old, he had never played on grass at the highest level, and he was facing men who were older, stronger, and more experienced. But he played with a freedom that surprised everyone, serving powerfully, diving for volleys, and hitting his forehand with a force that left his opponents standing still. He beat players who were ranked far above him, and he reached the final, where he faced Kevin Curren, a South African player who had beaten the defending champion, Jimmy Connors, in the semi-final.
The final was played on a sunny day in July, and Becker won it in four sets, becoming the youngest man ever to win Wimbledon, and the first unseeded player to win the men’s title. He was seventeen years and seven months old, and he was a champion, and the crowd at Centre Court, which had never seen him before the tournament began, cheered him as if he were one of their own. He celebrated with a joy that was pure and unguarded, and the whole world fell in love with him, because he was a boy who had done something that seemed impossible, and who had done it with a smile.
The victory changed his life overnight. He became a hero in Germany, where tennis had never been a major sport, and he became a star around the world, with sponsors, with money, and with fame that followed him everywhere. He was still a teenager, and he was suddenly one of the most famous people in his country, and the pressure that came with that fame was enormous. He had to learn how to be a champion, and how to be a public figure, and how to handle money, all at an age when most young people are still learning how to be adults. It was a heavy burden, and it would shape the rest of his life.
He defended his title in 1986, beating Ivan Lendl in the final in straight sets, and he proved that the first victory had not been a lucky accident. He was a real champion, and he was here to stay, and the tennis world began to understand that it had a new star, a star who would be at the top of the game for many years. He was still only eighteen years old, and he had already won Wimbledon twice, and the future seemed to have no limits.
Six Grand Slams and the Davis Cup Hero
In the years that followed, Becker won more titles, and he became one of the best players in the world. He won Wimbledon for a third time in 1989, beating Stefan Edberg in the final, and he won the US Open in 1989, beating Ivan Lendl in the final, and he won the Australian Open in 1991 and 1996, bringing his total of Grand Slam singles titles to six. He also became the world number one in 1991, after winning the Australian Open, and he held that ranking for twelve weeks, a prize that had been his goal since he was a boy. He was, by the early 1990s, one of the great players of his generation, and he was still only in his early twenties.
He was also a hero in the Davis Cup, the team competition between countries, and he played for Germany with a passion that made him a national figure. In 1988, he helped Germany to win the Davis Cup for the first time, beating Sweden in the final, and in 1989, he helped Germany to win it again, beating Sweden once more. He played long, hard matches in the Davis Cup, including a famous match against John McEnroe in 1987 that lasted more than six hours, and that Becker lost, but that showed the world how much he cared about playing for his country. The Davis Cup victories made him a hero in Germany in a way that no individual title ever could, because they were won for the whole nation, not only for himself.
His game was built on power, and on courage. He served big, he hit his forehand big, and he came to the net, diving for volleys, and he played with a heart that never gave up. He was not the most graceful player, and he was not the most consistent, but he was one of the bravest, and he won matches that other players would have lost, because he refused to accept defeat. He was a fighter, and the crowds loved him for it, because they could see, in every dive and every shout, how much he wanted to win.
But the fame that came with his success was also a burden, and as he grew older, the burden grew heavier. He was watched everywhere he went, his private life was in the newspapers, and he made mistakes, as young men do, but his mistakes were public, and they were punished in public, and the pressure never went away. He was a champion, but he was also a young man who had never had a normal life, and the cost of that would become clear in the years after he stopped playing.
Fame Too Young and the End of Playing
Becker played on into the 1990s, and he remained one of the best players in the world, but the wins became less frequent, and the injuries became more common. He was a big man, and he played a physical game, diving and falling, and his body began to wear out, especially his knees and his back. He reached the Wimbledon final again in 1991, losing to Michael Stich, a fellow German, and he won the Australian Open in 1996, his last Grand Slam title, beating Michael Chang in the final. It was a fine victory, and it showed that he still had the heart of a champion, but it was also the last great win of his career.
He retired from professional tennis in 1999, after playing his last match at Wimbledon, the tournament where his career had begun fourteen years earlier. He was 31 years old, and he had won six Grand Slam titles, and he had been the world number one, and he had helped his country to win the Davis Cup twice, and he had become one of the most famous sportsmen in the world. It was a great career, by any measure, but it was also a career that had started too young, and that had asked too much of a boy who had never had time to grow up slowly.
His personal life, in the years after his retirement, was difficult. He had married Barbara Feltus, an American model and actress, in 1993, and the couple had two sons, Noah and Elias, but the marriage ended in divorce in 2001, after a long and public struggle. He also had a daughter, Anna, born in 2000, and he later married Lilly Kerssenberg, a Dutch model, in 2009, and that marriage also ended in divorce, in 2018. He was a man who wanted love and family, and who struggled to find them, and whose private life was played out in the newspapers, in a way that made it harder, not easier, to be happy.
He tried many things after tennis: he worked as a commentator, he played in senior events, he wrote books, and he invested in businesses, but he was not always wise with his money, and he lived a life that was more expensive than his income could support. He was a man who had earned a great deal, and who had spent a great deal, and who had never learned, as a teenager with sudden wealth, how to manage money carefully. That failure would, many years later, bring him to the lowest point of his life.
Bankruptcy, Prison, and a Public Fall
In 2017, Becker was declared bankrupt by a court in London, after he failed to pay a debt, and the news shocked the tennis world, because it seemed impossible that a man who had earned so much could have lost it all. He said, at the time, that he was not bankrupt, and that he would pay his debts, but the court did not agree, and the process of bankruptcy began, a process that would last for years, and that would examine every part of his financial life. He was ordered to give information about his assets, and to cooperate with the officials who were handling his case, and he did not do so fully, and that failure would have serious consequences.
In 2022, he was found guilty in a London court of hiding assets from his creditors, including money and property, and he was sentenced to two and a half years in prison. He served about eight months in a British prison, and he was then released and deported to Germany, in December 2022. It was a humiliating and painful experience, and it was reported around the world, because a Wimbledon champion in prison is a story that no one could have imagined when the seventeen-year-old boy won the title in 1985. He has spoken, since his release, about the experience, and about what he learned from it, and about his desire to rebuild his life, and his honesty about the fall has earned him some respect, even from people who were shocked by it.
The prison sentence was the lowest point of his life, but it was also, in a strange way, a turning point, because it forced him to face the truth about himself, and about the way he had lived. He had been a boy who was given everything too young, and a man who had never learned to say no, and a person who had spent money as if it would never run out, and the prison cell was a place where none of those things mattered anymore. He has said that he learned, in prison, to be humble, and to be grateful for small things, and to think about what really matters in life, and those are lessons that are hard to learn in any other way.
Coaching Djokovic and the Road Back
Before his bankruptcy and his prison sentence, Becker had found a new role in tennis, as a coach, and it was a role that suited him well. In 2013, he became the coach of Novak Djokovic, the Serbian champion who was already one of the best players in the world, and who wanted to become even better. Becker worked with Djokovic for three years, from 2013 to 2016, and in that time, Djokovic won six Grand Slam titles, and became the world number one, and played some of the best tennis of his career. Becker’s experience, his knowledge of big matches, and his understanding of pressure, helped Djokovic to become a better player, and the partnership was a success for both men.
He also coached Holger Rune, the young Danish player, for a short period in 2023 and 2024, and he has worked as a commentator for television, talking about tennis with the knowledge of a man who has been to the top and who understands the game from the inside. He has also written about his life, and he has spoken openly about his mistakes, and about his desire to rebuild, and he has shown a willingness to be honest that many people admire. He is a man who has fallen, and who is trying to rise again, and that effort is, in its own way, as brave as any dive he ever made on a tennis court.
Today, Becker lives in Germany, and he is working to rebuild his life and his reputation, and he is still a figure that the tennis world watches with interest and with sympathy. He was a boy who won Wimbledon at seventeen, and a man who lost everything at fifty, and a person who is now trying to find a new way forward. His story is not over yet, and it is a story that reminds us that fame is fragile, that money is fragile, and that the only thing that lasts is character, and the willingness to learn from your mistakes.
The German Hero: How Becker Changed Tennis in Germany
Before Boris Becker won Wimbledon in 1985, tennis was a small sport in Germany, a game played by a few people, watched by fewer, and ignored by most of the country. After he won, everything changed. Children picked up rackets for the first time. Tennis clubs filled up. Television showed tennis matches that had never been shown before. And a whole generation of German children grew up believing that a German could be the best in the world, because they had seen one do it with their own eyes. Becker did not only win a tournament. He changed a nation’s idea of what was possible, and that is a rare and wonderful thing for a seventeen-year-old boy to do.
He also changed the way Germans saw themselves in sport. Germany was known for football, and for discipline, and for team sports, but it was not known for individual stars who played with joy and with flair. Becker was a star who played with joy, and who celebrated with his whole heart, and who made the German people smile in a way that few athletes had done before. He became a national hero, not only because he won, but because he won with a spirit that the whole country could love. He was on the front page of every newspaper, and on the television every night, and his name became known to people who had never watched a tennis match in their lives.
The effect lasted for years, and it can still be seen today in the German players who followed him, in the coaches who learned from his example, and in the clubs that grew because of his fame. Michael Stich, who beat Becker in the Wimbledon final in 1991, was one of those players, and Steffi Graf, the great German women’s champion, was another, and the two of them, together with Becker, made the late 1980s and early 1990s a golden age for German tennis. Becker was the first, and he was the spark, and without him, the golden age might never have happened. That is a legacy that no court can take away, and no prison can erase, because it lives in the children who picked up a racket because of him.
My Take:
I think Boris Becker’s story is the saddest story in tennis, and I say that because it did not have to end the way it did. He was seventeen years old when he won Wimbledon, and he was a hero, and he had the whole world in front of him, and he had talent, and he had courage, and he had charm, and he had everything a young person could want. And yet, forty years later, he was in a prison cell in London, because he had hidden money from the people he owed it to, and because he had never learned how to handle the life that fame had given him. That is a tragedy, and I think we should look at it honestly, not to judge him, but to learn from him, because his story is a warning about what happens when a child is given too much, too soon, and when no one teaches him how to live with it.
The first thing that strikes me about Becker is how young he was, and how unfair that was. He was seventeen, and he was suddenly rich, and famous, and the most important sportsman in Germany, and he had no one to guide him through it. His parents loved him, and his coaches tried to help him, but nobody had ever been in his position before, because no German teenager had ever won Wimbledon, and there was no map for the life he was living. He had to learn, on his own, how to handle money, how to handle fame, how to handle women, and how to handle pressure, and he made mistakes, as any teenager would, but his mistakes were public, and they were punished in public, and the pressure never went away. I feel sorry for that boy, and I think the tennis world should feel sorry for him too, because it took his talent, and it took his youth, and it gave him very little in return except money and attention.
What I admire most about Becker is his courage on the court, and I want to talk about it, because it was real. He dived for balls that other players would not have tried to reach. He served with a power that frightened his opponents. He played with a heart that never gave up, even when he was losing, even when he was hurt, even when the match seemed over. That courage won him six Grand Slam titles, and it won him the Davis Cup for Germany, and it made him a hero to millions of people. I think that courage is the best part of him, and I think it is the part that will last, long after the prison sentence is forgotten. He was a brave player, and bravery is a rare thing, and I respect it deeply.
But I also have to be honest about the fall, because the fall was his own doing, and it hurt people, and it cannot be excused. He was declared bankrupt, and he hid assets from his creditors, and he was sent to prison, and those are facts, not rumours, and they are facts that he has admitted. I do not think he is a bad man. I think he is a man who made bad choices, and who did not understand money, and who was too proud to ask for help, and who thought that the rules did not apply to him, because he had been special since he was seventeen. That pride is a common flaw in people who are told, from a young age, that they are special, and it is a flaw that can destroy a life if it is not checked. Becker’s pride destroyed his finances, and it nearly destroyed his reputation, and I hope that young athletes will learn from it, and will learn to ask for help, and to be humble, before it is too late.
I also think about the coaching years with Djokovic, because they showed a different Becker, a wiser Becker, a man who had learned from his own career and who could teach another champion how to win. He helped Djokovic to win six Grand Slam titles, and he did it by sharing his experience, and his knowledge of pressure, and his understanding of big matches. That tells me that Becker’s gift was not only his serve. It was his understanding of the game, and his ability to teach it, and I think that is a gift that he should use more, because the tennis world needs coaches who have been to the top and who can guide young players through the dangers that Becker himself did not survive. He could be a great coach, and a great mentor, if he chooses to be, and I hope he does.
The Davis Cup victories are the part of his career that I love most, because they were won for Germany, not only for himself, and because they showed that Becker cared about something bigger than his own fame. He played long, hard matches for his country, including a six-hour match against McEnroe that he lost, and he gave everything he had, and the German people loved him for it. I think that is the Becker that Germany remembers, the boy who won for his country, and the man who made tennis popular in a nation that had never cared about it before. That is a legacy that no bankruptcy can take away, and no prison sentence can erase, because it belongs to the people, not to the courts.
If I could speak to a young athlete who has just become famous, I would tell them to read Becker’s story, and to learn from it. I would tell them to find a person they trust, a person who will tell them the truth about money, and to listen to that person. I would tell them to save their money, to live simply, and to remember that fame does not last forever, and that the day will come when the crowds go home, and when the only thing left is the person you have become. Becker did not learn that lesson until it was too late, and he paid a high price for it, but his story can save another young person from paying the same price, and that is why it is worth telling, even though it is sad.
In the end, I think Boris Becker will be remembered as a great champion, and as a man who fell, and as a man who is trying to rise again, and I think all three parts of that story matter. He was great, and he fell, and he is rising, and the rising is the part that I am watching now, with hope. I hope he finds peace, and I hope he finds a way to use his experience to help young players, and I hope the tennis world forgives him, as it has forgiven other players who have made mistakes. He was seventeen once, and he won Wimbledon, and that boy deserves to be remembered with love, even if the man he became made terrible mistakes. I will remember the dive, and the serve, and the smile, and I will hope that the next chapter of his life is a happier one.
I also think about his children, because they have had to watch their father go through all of this in public, and that must have been hard for them. Noah, Elias, and Anna did not choose to be the children of a famous man, and they did not choose to see his name in the newspapers for the wrong reasons. I hope they know that their father loves them, and that he is trying to be better, and I hope they will be proud of him one day, not only for the tennis, but for the way he faced his mistakes. A father’s greatest legacy is not his titles. It is his children, and Becker’s children are the reason he has to keep trying, and to keep rising.
One more thought stays with me, and it is about the word “Boom Boom”, because it is a happy nickname, a nickname that belongs to a boy who hit the ball hard and who loved the game, and I think that boy is still inside Becker, even after everything. He is still the boy from Leimen who grew up above a tennis centre, who loved to dive, and who loved to win, and who loved to make people cheer. I hope that boy finds his way back, and I hope the next time we see Becker, it is with a smile, and with a racket in his hand, teaching a young player how to serve, and how to dive, and how to win, and how to live. That would be a good ending, and I think he deserves a good ending.
And finally, I want to say that I believe in second chances, because Becker’s story is really a story about whether a person can have a second chance after losing everything. He lost his money, he lost his freedom, and he lost his reputation, but he did not lose his life, and he did not lose his talent, and he did not lose the love of his children. He has a chance to rebuild, and I hope he takes it, and I hope the world gives him the time to do it. We are all more than our worst mistake, and Becker is more than his prison sentence. He is a champion, and a father, and a man who is trying, and that is enough for me to wish him well.
I also think about the German children who picked up a racket because of Becker, because that is a legacy that cannot be measured in titles or in money. A child in a small German town, who saw a seventeen-year-old boy win Wimbledon, and who thought, “I could do that too,” is a child whose life was changed by Becker, and there were thousands of them. Some of them became players, and some of them became coaches, and some of them simply became people who love tennis, and all of them owe something to the boy from Leimen. That is a beautiful thing, and it is a thing that will last long after the headlines about his prison sentence have been forgotten.
There is one more lesson in Becker’s story that I want to name, and it is about the danger of believing your own legend. When the whole world tells you, from the age of seventeen, that you are special, and that you are a hero, and that the rules do not apply to you, it is very hard not to believe it. Becker believed it, and it cost him everything. I think we should be careful about how we treat young stars, because the praise we give them can become a poison, if it is not balanced by honesty, and by people who will tell them the truth. Becker needed someone to tell him the truth about money, and about pride, and about the law, and for a long time, no one did, or he did not listen. I hope the next young star has someone who tells them the truth, and who is listened to.
I also want to say something about his mother and father, because they built a tennis centre in Leimen, and they raised a boy above it, and they gave him the gift of the game. They did not know that their son would become famous, and they did not know that fame would bring him so much pain, but they loved him, and they supported him, and they were there for him. I think about how proud they must have been in 1985, and how sad they must have been in 2022, and I think about how hard it is to be the parent of a famous child. Parents can give their children everything, and still watch them fall, and that is a painful truth, but it is also a truth that Becker’s parents lived, and I respect them for it.
And I want to finish by saying that I will always remember the dive. Becker diving across the grass at Wimbledon, throwing his whole body at the ball, landing hard, getting up, and playing the next point as if nothing had happened: that is the image that stays with me, and it is the image that I think defines him. He was a man who gave everything, who held nothing back, and who was willing to fall for the sake of winning. He fell many times in his life, on the court and off it, and he got up many times, and he is getting up again now. I hope he stays up this time, and I hope the next chapter is a good one.
Frequently Asked Questions
How old was Boris Becker when he won Wimbledon?
He was 17 years and seven months old when he won Wimbledon in 1985, making him the youngest man ever to win the title and the first unseeded men’s champion.
How many Grand Slam titles did Boris Becker win?
He won six Grand Slam singles titles: three at Wimbledon, two at the Australian Open, and one at the US Open, and he was ranked world No. 1 in 1991.
What was Boris Becker’s nickname?
He was known as Boom Boom, a nickname given for the power of his serve and his forehand, which seemed to boom across the court.
How did Boris Becker help Germany in the Davis Cup?
He helped Germany win the Davis Cup for the first time in 1988 and again in 1989, playing long and passionate matches for his country.
Why was Boris Becker sent to prison?
In 2022 he was found guilty in London of hiding assets from his creditors after being declared bankrupt in 2017, and he was sentenced to two and a half years, serving about eight months.
Who did Boris Becker coach after retiring?
He coached Novak Djokovic from 2013 to 2016, during which Djokovic won six Grand Slam titles, and he later coached the young Danish player Holger Rune briefly.
