For a person whose inimitable model on the tennis court docket was matched solely by his vibrant escapades off it, Boris Becker’s departure from British shores this week was, in some respects, remarkably low-key.
Fellow ‘lags’ at HMP Huntercombe, a class C jail in Oxfordshire, had barely completed breakfast when prisoner A2923EV was ushered into the again of a Dwelling Workplace jail van and despatched on his approach. No time for goodbyes.
He was a hidden determine behind blacked-out home windows because the van travelled the 70-odd miles to the small Biggin Hill airfield, Kent.
However as soon as there, the departure of the person as soon as nicknamed Growth Growth (owing to his rocket-propelled powers on court docket) took a diversion from the form of exit extra usually related to the deportation of a prison with out British citizenship.
Declared bankrupt in 2017, Boris Becker was sentenced to 2 and a half years in jail in April this 12 months for hiding £2.5 million in property to keep away from paying his money owed, which amounted to an astronomical sum of just about £50 million. Pictured: Boris Becker and spouse Lilian de Carvalho arriving at Southwark Crown Court docket for the sentencing
As a result of ready for Becker was a personal jet, purported variously to have been chartered both by a pal (he nonetheless has many) or as a part of deal (mentioned to be value six figures) with a German tv firm, in alternate for the unique story of his time inside. Such is the dichotomy of Boris Becker, who as an unseeded 17-year-old sensation grew to become Wimbledon’s youngest-ever male champion in 1985, chalking up some £20million in profession winnings, and tens of thousands and thousands extra in profitable offers.
Then got here his spectacular fall from grace. Declared bankrupt in 2017, he was sentenced to 2 and a half years in jail in April this 12 months for hiding £2.5 million in property to keep away from paying his money owed, which amounted to an astronomical sum of just about £50 million.
Becker, 55, has but to be seen in public since flying again to Germany on Thursday on the posh Learjet 60. However that is to not say he hasn’t been busy.
Famed for being as flamboyant off the court docket as on it, as he prepares to inform all about an expertise his personal lawyer described as ‘public humiliation’, may essentially the most spectacular Becker bounce-back but already be brewing?
The 55-year-old tennis star, who received Wimbledon on the age of 17 together with six grand slams, mentioned that he had hit his ‘backside’ whereas awaiting to be sentenced earlier this 12 months
The sportsman had barely set foot again inside his homeland earlier than manoeuvres had been going down to arrange his first post-prison interview, a schedule-clearing occasion to be broadcast on Tuesday night in German and English.
‘I’m happy Boris Becker is placing his belief in us for the primary and solely interview worldwide after what could have been essentially the most troublesome time in his life,’ heralded channel Sat.1’s editor-in-chief Julian Essling yesterday morning. It’s positive to be gripping viewing.
As a pal of the participant says: ‘Individuals are nonetheless keen on him, individuals will fall out with him however can not help being received over by him.
‘It was a shock when he went to jail and other people genuinely do not know what he’s going to do now, however the feeling is he’ll in all probability begin by attempting to rehabilitate himself within the tennis world.’
Certainly, the Mail has discovered his crew are already ‘in dialogue’ with tv bosses about his potential return to punditry, which may take within the Australian Open. That competitors begins in January — a mere matter of weeks.
Highly effective supporters of Becker have additionally informed the Mail of their want to assist him: Dirk Hordorff, the influential vice chairman of the German Tennis Federation (DTB), says the door is open to the sportsman, who served as Head of Males’s Tennis in Germany from 2017 to 2020.
‘Boris has served his sentence and like everybody deserves an opportunity for a recent begin,’ he informed me this week.
It is an nearly breathtakingly fast turnaround in fortune. However what else would one count on for a star as mercurial and charismatic as Becker?
First incarcerated at Wandsworth — a Class B jail — Becker was held on a wing for ‘susceptible prisoners’, together with paedophiles and policemen more likely to face assault, earlier than being moved to Huntercombe.
Right here, the Mail has discovered, he helped ship coaching to fellow prisoners in the right way to deal with stress, a topic on which he’s well-versed.
‘It definitely wasn’t a comfortable expertise,’ says a supply. ‘It is not an open jail and positively not all white collar criminals.’
Becker’s deportation eight months into his sentence got here below a authorities scheme that means any foreigner jailed for a 12 months or extra is taken into account for elimination if it is deemed ‘conducive to the general public good’.
With no additional incarceration required, Becker is, in impact, a free man — albeit one whose funds are moderately hampered.
German courts have ordered that insolvency proceedings apply there too, that means a n y earnings generated goes into the insolvency property till such time as it’s closed.
That aside, Becker’s German lawyer Christian-Oliver Moser mentioned on Thursday that the previous tennis star had ‘served his sentence and isn’t topic to any penal restrictions in Germany’, all of which squarely places Becker again courtside. But for all his pure ebullience, the phrases of Decide Deborah Taylor, recorder of Westminster, should ring in his ears. ‘Whereas I settle for the humiliation you may need felt on account of these proceedings, there was no humility,’ she informed him again in April. In PR phrases, then, his first transfer will likely be to win over the hearts of his house nation.
But notably, he hasn’t lived in Germany for years. Becker has made his house London for greater than a decade, though he by no means utilized for British citizenship, which might have exempted him from deportation.
Because of this, as one German commentator informed the Mail, he is seen by a lot of the youthful technology as a ‘unusual man’, doing ‘unusual issues’ in London with a life that’s ‘uncontrolled’.
Regardless, the primary steps on the street to rehabilitation should happen in Germany: Becker is persona non grata within the UK for the foreseeable future.
Certainly, whereas the UK cannot impose any additional circumstances on him, he may nonetheless be banned from returning right here for ten years, making a return to his function as a Wimbledon pundit for the BBC unlikely. If this occurs, it will be an actual blow to Becker, contemplating his youngest youngster Amadeus, 12, lives together with his estranged spouse Lilly, 46, in London, as do son Elias, 23, and daughter Anna Ermakova, 22 (who was born after Becker’s liaison with a Russian mannequin at restaurant Nobu).
Regardless of his huge money owed, Becker has managed to cling on to a £1.8million seven-bedroom villa in Leimen, only a brief drive from the picturesque metropolis of Heidelberg, the place his beloved mom Elvira, 87, nonetheless lives in a granny flat
Eldest son Noah, 28, in the meantime, lives in Berlin. Add to this the reality his devoted girlfriend Lilian de Carvalho Monteiro can also be based mostly in London and you may see why a pal tells the Mail: ‘It’ll hit him laborious, he loves London in order that will likely be an actual blow to him.’
Not that he’s with out robust ties to Germany, which he has already been quietly constructing.
Whereas he is identified within the UK as a pundit at Wimbledon, Becker had additionally been an everyday on the Eurosport commentary crew, together with his personal present in Germany, Matchball Becker — which was renamed Matchball in his absence.
It’s to this present that, the Mail has learnt, Becker’s crew are negotiating a return, with a attainable function providing knowledgeable evaluation on the Australian Open — albeit going down from Munich, not Down Below, as he will not be allowed to journey.
In the meantime Mr Hordorff additionally informed the Mail this week: ‘In fact, Boris is a part of the German tennis household. I might be completely satisfied if he would deliver his data and experience again to the German tennis federation.
‘Boris embodies the best successes for German tennis. Like many others, I rooted for him again then.’
Regardless of his huge money owed, Becker has managed to cling on to a £1.8million seven-bedroom villa in Leimen, only a brief drive from the picturesque metropolis of Heidelberg, the place his beloved mom Elvira, 87, nonetheless lives in a granny flat. He was pressured to place the home available on the market in 2020 in an try to clear his money owed by the UK insolvency administrator.
Nevertheless, potential patrons had been informed that in the event that they purchased the home, they must enable his mom to proceed residing there till her demise.
The property, with views over the Rhine Valley, was then curiously taken off the market weeks later. Those that know Becker say a reunion together with his mom can have been first on his precedence record.
Whereas different relations noticed him in jail, she needed to cancel related plans to go to due to her well being. As her son’s launch approached, a pal of the household mentioned: ‘Elvira is solely overjoyed he’s coming house.
‘She was fearful about when she would possibly see him once more, so that is all an enormous deal for her — particularly given her age.’ A steadfast determine in her son’s life, she has been, maybe, his biggest fan all through his lengthy profession.
‘My mother and father needed me to check and do one thing severe, to be a physician or lawyer. I bear in mind after I received Wimbledon for the primary time my father mentioned it did not make it simpler for him to win an argument about me spending extra time at school,’ Becker as soon as mentioned.
An upcoming Apple TV+ two-part present will discover Boris Becker’s life and tennis profession
As Growth Growth Becker chalked up wins, the gang embraced him. Put up-retirement his reputation endured, however his monetary and private woes had been simply starting.
His marriage to his pregnant first spouse, mannequin and actress Barbara Feltus, was already floundering in 1999 when the sportsman headed off for a boozy evening which led to ‘that’ incident with Russian mannequin Angela Ermakova, ensuing within the start of his daughter, Anna.
The encounter — which Becker denied happened in a brush cabinet and mentioned occurred on stairs at Mayfair’s Nobu restaurant — ended his first marriage and led to an £11million divorce settlement.
He additionally misplaced the £3million household house in Miami and needed to make reported £19,000-amonth upkeep funds to his two sons.
Poker, property, Nigerian oil and fuel… you title it, he tried it. However off the court docket, Becker the businessman was not Becker the ace – smashing tennis star.
He seemingly spent cash as quick as he may make it, renting a home in Wimbledon for £22,000 a month — for a complete decade.
Cash troubles stalked him: there was a two-year suspended sentence for tax evasion and tried tax evasion value £1.4million in Germany in 2002.
In 2009 he married Dutch magnificence Lilly Kerssenberg, with whom he had his youngest son.
That marriage too crumbled, as did his ever-perilous funds, culminating in his look within the courts earlier this 12 months.
That day he strode into court docket carrying his All England Membership tie, membership of the celebrated membership having being conferred after his first Grand Slam win. Whether or not he will likely be donning it once more stays to be seen, because the Mail understands he has been stripped of his membership.
He allowed a documentary crew to movie him within the days main as much as his imprisonment, and a primary trailer for a two-part documentary to air on Apple TV+ was launched on Wednesday, as Becker was readying to depart jail.
In it, he could be seen being interviewed awaiting his sentence. ‘I’ve hit my [rock] backside, I do not know what to make of it,’ he says tearfully. ‘I face it, I am not going to cover or run away. I settle for no matter sentence I will get. It is Wednesday afternoon and [on] Friday I do know the remainder of my life.’
Becker stays enormously well-liked amongst his tennis friends, with John McEnroe declaring from Wimbledon this 12 months, ‘Boris, we love you. We miss you, man.’
McEnroe, Björn Borg and Novak Djokovic, who was coached by Becker between 2014 and 2016, are all mentioned to look within the documentary. Certainly, Djokovic welcomed Becker’s household into his field at Wimbledon this 12 months.
However as Becker embarks on the most important problem of his profession up to now, rebuilding his shattered popularity and funds, can he win again his followers?
Peter Tiede, chief information editor of German tabloid Bild tells the Mail: ‘Certainly one of our fallen heroes is again. That he’s now coming again to Germany could be a likelihood for him to get a grip on his life, to grasp that he has to work, and to grasp that there’s not a brand new money cow behind each nook which he can milk.
‘He should now arrange his lounge in Germany. Boris should polish himself up, then he can grow to be an icon once more. We love fallen angels.’
