McIntyre Tennis

Life After Retirement for Boris Becker

 

 

In his prime, Boris Becker was the best tennis player in the world, and the distinctively blonde-haired German was the youngest man ever to win Wimbledon at just 17. Though surely this was the crowning moment of his career, Becker also won an Olympic gold medal, 13 Masters series titles and five elite indoor titles.  

 

 

He said of retirement, in a 2012 interview, “I had won so much by 22, a number of Wimbledon titles, US Open, Davis Cup, World number one. You look for the next big thing and that isn't in tennis."  

 Since leaving the world of professional tennis, it would be an understatement to say that Becker has diversified his interests. Not only does he own a tennis clothing and accessories brand, but he is a skilled poker player, appears often on TV as a commentator, has written an autobiography, can be booked through his London booking agency for personal appearances and in 2013, began coaching Novak Djokovic. 

 

This last endeavour took up much of his time, with Becker acting as coach to Djokovic for three years, during which time he contributed to six Grand Slam titles and 14 Masters titles for the Serbian. 

 

 

Federer Adds Edberg to Coaching Staff

By Mike McIntyre

Roger Federer announced today that he will add his childhood idol Stefan Edberg to his coaching staff for the 2014 season.

The 47 year old Edberg who hoisted six Grand Slam singles titles during his playing career will join Federer at the Australian Open beginning January 13th in Melbourne.

The Edberg/Federer pairing first surfaced earlier in December with a week of training in Dubai. At the time Edberg said, "If we can, I would be more than happy. The idea of the (training) camp was that I would give my views and come up with some feedback. He wants to try some new things."

Trying new things is a must for Federer as last season proved his old routine was no longer getting the job done. He lost in the second round at Wimbledon and at the U.S. Open failed to move past the fourth round. He closed out the year ranked sixth in the world, his lowest year-end ranking since 2003.

After parting ways with coach Paul Annacone in October, Federer was in no rush to bring on fresh blood. He kept long-time advisor and Swiss Davis Cup captain Severin Luthi who will remain the constant on his team in 2014.

Edberg will join the Federer camp for a minimum of ten weeks according to a post by Federer on his official website.

Andy Murray proved in recent years that hiring a former great can pay immediate dividends. After taking on former world number-one Ivan Lendl as his coach in 2012, Murray went on to win his first Grand Slam title that summer along with an Olympic gold medal. He continued his successful partnership with Lendl last year by becoming the first Brit in 77 years to win Wimbledon.

After losing his number-one ranking in October, Novak Djokovic approached another legend from the 1980s, Boris Becker, to be his new coach. Becker is best known for making the finals at Wimbledon seven times, capturing the title on three occasions.

Regardless of the immediate results of these two new coaching partnerships, watching some of the great tennis rivalries from the 1980s take on new form today should be something to keep tennis fans and pundits alike enthralled this coming season.

For the record, Becker held a 25-10 career head-to-head record against Edberg, while to date, Federer narrowly leads Djokovic 16-15.

If you combine player/coach career statistics the Federer/Edberg team leads the Djokovic/Becker duo in terms of win-loss ratio, career titles and earnings.

	Wins	Losses	Titles	Prize Money
Federer/Edberg	1724	485	118	$99,849,356
Djokovic/Becker	1256	346	90	$83,215,401

Audio: Boris Becker on Federer and Nadal

Boris Becker talks Federer, Nadal and the French Open at the World Team Cup Championships.

Boris, Part 1; Boris, Part 2.

Becker Has Courtroom Setback

How many court cases can this guy possibly find himself in?

From DW-World.de: Boris Becker Possibly Liable for Business Losses

Boris Becker faced defeat Monday not on the tennis court, but in a court of law. As a result, Becker now faces a new trial on whether or not he is liable for debts incurred through his failed Internet sports portal...

In July 2000 following the founding of the sports platform, Becker allowed an employee of a Washington hotel bar to write a declaration making him liable for 1.5 million euros in the case of losses at Sportgate -- a declaration which he then signed. While at the bar, Becker also had a conversation with a board member and a representative of one of a further founder of Sportgate.

Boris Becker Autobiography Gets Good Review

I confess I didn't even know Boris Becker had written an autobiography.  It apparently came out last year (in English anyway).

From Supersport: Becker's book is the write stuff

I’m normally no fan of the sports biography, which is all too often badly written, clichéd and prone to ‘disneyfying’ its subject...

There are, of course, wonderful exceptions to the rule. I’ve just finished reading The Player. Not the screenplay for the Robert Altman movie, but instead the life and times of Boris Becker, the man who became the youngest Wimbledon winner of all time back in 1985. ‘Boom Boom’ was just 17, a ginger-thatched kid from a small town in Germany, when he gate-crashed Britain’s great summer garden party and set his life on a tumultuous roller-coaster course for which he had received precious little preparation.

’The Player’ is easily one of the best sports books I have read, a startlingly candid look at someone who was never just another tennis automaton, but a living, breathing human being driven by passion, prone to emotional outbursts and interested in the world beyond the restrictive white lines of the tennis court.

Boris Becker A Little Richer After Winning Lawsuit

From Reuters: Becker wins suit against paper

Former top tennis player Boris Becker has won €1.2 million ($A1.93 million) in a lawsuit against a German newspaper which used his photograph in an advertisement without asking for permission.

Becker had asked the regional court in Munich for almost €2.4 million in compensation for the use of his picture, his lawyer Georg Stock said yesterday.

The court said in a ruling it had decided to award Becker €1.2 million, plus 5 per cent interest since 2002.

The daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) ran an ad-campaign in 2001 for its then new Sunday edition, featuring a mock front-page that carried a photo of the red-haired tennis star who won his first Wimbledon title in 1985 at the age of 17, making him a national hero.

Becker Ready for British Game Show Duties

From icWales: 'I have a sense of humour'

HE'S beaten some of the best tennis players in the world, but this autumn Boris Becker is facing an even tougher challenge - proving a German can have a sense of humour.

The former Wimbledon champion is stepping up to be a team captain on the new series of BBC One sports quiz show, They Think It's All Over, putting himself at the mercy of Jonathan Ross and Rory McGrath.

"The big question is what will happen on the show," Boris says, with a grin. "It's an exciting new move for me."...

Becker Splits With Girlfriend

I'm so behind.  Today Boris Becker announces that he has split with his girlfriend of three years, ballet dancer Carloline Rocher, and I never even knew they were an item. 

He talked to the German magazine Gala about the split and comes out sounding very silly in the English translation: "It's a fact. The love couple of Caroline and Boris is no more. The relationship was in a state of crises for almost half a year now especially because I'm always out of town," said Becker. 

And given his past, he had to reassure the magazine that he hadn't cheated on Rocher.  Someday (maybe in a decade or two)  he's going to live that episode down.

Becker also announced that he has signed a new advertising deal with brewery Koenig Pilsener of Berlin.

Boris Becker's New Fashion Line

Must everyone have a fashion line?  Boris Becker is the lastest to join the club.  I can't say I've ever considered him much of a fashion icon, but everyone else has a line these days so why not him?  Hopefully it will do better than most of his other post-retirement business investments.  From Vogue: The New Becks

Boris Becker was jubilant at the launch of his own fashion line in Munich event yesterday. "Twenty years after I won Wimbledon… another dream of mine has come true with my own fashion line," he told reporters. The collection, which the 37-year-old tennis star developed in collaboration with German sportswear company Volk, comprises casual wear inspired by tennis as well as Becker's other sporting loves, baseball and cricket. And he's been involved with its production from the outset. "I've been sitting in front of a white sheet of paper and trying to figure out which colours, which designs suit me," he said.

Boris Becker Strikes Again

Boris Becker just did an interview discussing the current state of German tennis with Bild am Sonntag and had this to say:

"At the moment we do not have any world class players.  Haas, Kiefer and Schuettler have all been in the top ten but have slipped down the rankings due to various reasons."

"Philipp Petzschner is the best example of what is wrong with German tennis."

"Two years ago he was the best junior in the world and played Rafael Nadal at Wimbledon. Just look where Petzschner and Nadal are now." (Petzschner's #297 in the world)

"Between the ages of 16 and 20 something is going wrong. We have not found the secret to success here in Germany."

Now of course Becker is generally right, but what did poor Philipp Petzschner do to get called out like that?