Boris Becker and Steffi Graf: The world stars who had nothing in common - except victories
Even after the end of his career, things never calmed down around Boris Becker, he never existed without a stage and drama. "I couldn't live like Steffi," he once said. While Steffi Graf silently dealt with her financial problems, Becker is expecting the big judgment about his future on Friday.
by Jörg Allmeroth
last edit: Apr 28, 2022, 08:21 pm
It was September 16, 1999, when Boris Becker made a statement that was as amazing as it was correct in an airport lounge at Palma de Mallorca Airport. "The first photos of a new Becker baby (Elias, d. Red) are not the lead of the BILD newspaper," Becker said at the time - feigned horror - to the few fellow passengers who wanted to fly with him to Munich in a private jet, "there something very special must have happened.”
Of course, Becker had something special ahead of the rest of the troupe, the actual sensational news that adorned the page 1 head of the tabloid: “Yeah! Great love: Steffi and Agassi." Becker passed the newspaper around, then announced: "It's awesome, isn't it?"
Indeed it was. But that day was the big exception in the fundamentally different lives of the two fundamentally different German world stars - Boris Becker and Steffi Graf, who both left the Baden provinces in the mid-1980s to color tennis black, red and gold and the nation at home to inspire for their center court duels. Becker was always the man for the colorful, shrill, adventurous, lurid headlines, the man who was happy when he appeared on the cover again and was the center of attention as a matter of course. Graf, on the other hand, was hated by the public, the way the cameras looked at her and the microphones held in front of her. She just wanted to play tennis, nothing else, she took care of the dazzling trappings in the professional tour circuit out of a pure sense of duty. Not because she enjoyed it.
Steffi Graf after resignation: "I'm glad to have my peace"
The fact that Becker had to answer to a London court for misconduct in his insolvency proceedings in the last few weeks and is now awaiting the judge's verdict will have been noted by Graf's long-time companion in her new home in Las Vegas. But it's just a side note for Germany's greatest sportswoman, who in every respect has put a tremendous distance on her past life and comrades-in-arms. With a few exceptions, Graf has withdrawn from the public eye, and since resigning on August 13, 1999 and marrying Andre Agassi, has largely taken care of her family in secret. And interviews were almost only given when it concerned her foundation for traumatized children and young people. For a while she also traveled with her husband Agassi on tennis tours as a player's wife. But she seemed almost relieved when the 2006 also hung up the bat. "I'm glad to have my peace," she said later, "the years in tennis were brutally hard."
Becker, on the other hand, was always aware that he couldn't slow down like that. However, one would have wished him as much foresight and consistency as the "Countess", who at some point drew the tear line in the turbulent turbulence of the tax scandal triggered by her father - and had the required additional payment of around 27 million marks transferred to the tax authorities. With that, this unfortunate chapter was closed, the headline theater was over. And Becker? He saw himself in court for the first time in 2003, when tax evasion was tried against him in Munich. He got away with a more serious scratch, a two-year suspended sentence. But, as we now know, the trouble didn't stop there for him, on the contrary.
Becker: "I'm just a different person"
For almost 15 years, Becker and Graf traveled together in the tennis caravan that traveled across continents and time zones. They played side by side in the biggest tournaments, the Grand Slam spectacles. Their balance sheets, their performances, their victories, their failures were compared again and again. In 1989 they both held up their Wimbledon trophies at the obligatory Champions Dinner at the All England Lawn Tennis Club. The Becker/Graf double strike was one of the greatest German sporting moments, and the joint cup photo is a historical document. But through all of that, they never really got close, emotionally or personally. When they stood together on a tennis court for the first time at the turn of the year 1991/1992, at the Hopman Cup in Perth, Australia, the unofficial mixed world championship, the togetherness seemed rather trying. Together, the travel companies of both stars did nothing in the metropolis on the Indian Ocean.
Becker was always accused of Graf just like Graf, the compatriot who was two years his senior. When Becker was asked about the 22-time Grand Slam winner, who lived far from home, for his 50th birthday, he reacted slightly angrily. It was simply impossible for him to "live like Steffi now in Las Vegas, away from everything," said Becker, "I'm just a different person." completed one of her few public appearances. "I can't say anything about that because I don't know what his life actually looks like," says Graf, "it's Boris' thing anyway."
Graf, the dominating player of her tennis epoch, simply disappeared from the public eye and from discussions after the last years of her career, which were marked by many injuries. She delivered no scandals. Nothing for motley society papers to enjoy. When she occasionally visited her German homeland, only her closest friends found out. There was never any posing in the limelight, only appointments related to her foundation work. Interviews with her became a rarity, even those about tennis. She doesn't watch a lot of sport anymore, she said four years ago at a sponsor appointment in Paris, "I'm happy if I come to the gym myself regularly."
Becker lawyer: "He is hopeless with money"
Becker was always far away from such a constant flow of life. Things have never calmed down for him since he too retired in 1999. Becker also wanted to be successful in business life, he threw himself into many projects, but also failed often enough as an "apprentice in pinstripes." His private life was glaringly illuminated, his first divorce from his wife Barbara was watched by millions of people worldwide in front of the television screens, all broadcast live Miami. Becker continued to live in grand style, there seemed to be no cost management, maintenance payments to ex-wives and for his children from several marriages added up. His legal adviser Jonathan Laidlaw defended him in court in London, saying that Becker was "hopeless" when it came to handling money.
During the big roller coaster ride of his life, Becker kept flirting with the idea of stepping back and wanting to “take it easy”. But without attention, without attention, he simply couldn't do it, that's his eternal dilemma, he can't exist without a stage and drama. Even if it costs him dearly. "I live my life as I please. Not like others want me to do,” Becker said more than once. The fact that he once moved from Germany to London also had to do with the conviction that he should be patronized at home practically forever, preferably still being the flawless 17-year-old Bobbele.
He spent a lot of energy fighting the German wishful thinking about "what an idol should be like," says Becker. The fact that he lost himself in the process, that he was not willing to accept advice and competent help, was possibly the tragic twist of fate.