‘It’s Doom Doom Becker now’.
This was the headline of an article on Boris Becker’s on-court struggles in 1988. He had sensationally won Wimbledon at age 17 and 18 in 1985 and 1986. But in 1987 and 1988 he did not win a single major title.
That prompted the headline. Becker, nicknamed ‘Boom Boom’ for his big serving and acrobatic diving volleys, was now ‘Doom Doom’.
How trivial those problems of Becker’s now seem. Today, he faces a far more serious type of doom. He is in jail for hiding assets to avoid paying creditors after going bankrupt.
Read that again. Boris Becker, once the blond prince of the sports and celebrity world, an arresting combination of charisma and talent, wealthy beyond imagination, is bankrupt and in the slammer.
No one who followed Becker’s career would have foreseen this.
He was very popular in India, this big boyish German. Two important Indian mediums of that time – the '80s and '90s - embraced tennis in a big way. They were Doordarshan and Sportstar magazine. Doordarshan would telecast Wimbledon semifinals and finals. Sportstar carried tennis content throughout the 12 months, with some fine writing and photographs.
For much of the urban Indian youth of that era, tennis was their second favourite sport after cricket. Since women’s tennis too had stars such as Martina Navratilova, Chris Evert and Steffi Graf, the game had a following among Indian women as well. Besides, the sport had a cool quotient.
Becker was almost everyone’s top choice. His triumph in the Wimbledon men’s singles at age 17 in a field comprising John McEnroe, Ivan Lendl and Jimmy Connors boggles the mind even today. But Beckermania had as much to do with his style as the results. No one had played tennis like Becker before. He had a distinctive serving motion where he rocked his body and flexed his elbow outward. And then there was Becker’s signature shot – the diving volley. He would fling himself on the turf, more goalkeeper than tennis player. Rare were Becker matches when there were no dust patches on his clothes or cuts on his limbs. Will, soil, blood combined when Boris was on court.
Between points, too, Becker was theatre. He walked with a playful swagger, tapping the ball on the ground this way and that with his racquet, as if walking a small dog. He blew air on his fingers and palm to dry out sweat. He had a peculiar tic of clearing his throat, or his nerves, with a half cough. When anguished, he would rage away in German. At Wimbledon 1988, when his long hair was interfering with his vision, he asked for scissors and gave himself a haircut at the changeover.
Those lucky enough to be young in that generation copied these gestures in building games or club level tournaments.
Becker’s Indian fandom got an opportunity to see him in the flesh when he played in the Chennai Open in 1998, which this journalist covered. The stands exploded when he walked on to the court. He was almost mobbed when he walked in the premises of the stadium. At the Taj Coromandel, where Becker was staying, fans of all ages would wait in the lobby for a darshan, or better still, a quick ‘Guten Tag, Boris’. One elderly man had carried with him a small wooden canon as a gift for Becker, to go with his ‘Boom Boom’ identity.
Becker retired the next year, a rich man still immensely popular in tennis nations, still courted for endorsements by A-list companies such as Tag Heuer and Mercedes. But he was soon to sabotage his own life. And it would be the first serious blow to his reputation and to his fortune.
Vacant and sad after playing the last match of his career on Wimbledon’s Centre Court, Becker ended up at the bar at Nobu Japanese restaurant in London. His wife Barbara, who was pregnant, stayed in her room. Sparks flew at the bar between Becker and a waitress named Angela Ermakova. A tryst followed.
Becker later dismissed it as a few moments of passion. It was “not an affair, just poom-pah-boom”, he said. But it had a domino effect. Not only did his marriage end, but Ermakova got pregnant too.
Two kids on the way, one of them illegitimate, alimony and legal costs can make even a rich man anxious over his finances. Nor was Becker one to scale down his lifestyle. Even in bankruptcy, he managed to dine and shop lavishly.
“He is not a sophisticated individual when it comes to finances,” John Briggs, Becker’s lawyer, once told a court.
Post-divorce, facing a sudden expense of some 20 million pounds, Becker grabbed whatever opportunities he got to earn a dime. That’s where he lost his exclusivity. An A-lister started to become a B-grader. He was in an oddly cast Siyaram’s commercial with Diya Mirza, shot in Rajasthan. He attended Subrata Roy’s events, danced with Bollywood actors and Akon at a Hero Motocorp party. He lent his name to a random Dubai property which, not surprisingly, went bust.
That Becker would have relationship troubles was inevitable. You could see he loved decadence and female attention. Fans do not begrudge him his lost looks either. A big reason for his physical deterioration, along with alcohol, has been his punishing style of play. The diving volleys that thrilled millions also resulted in hip replacements when Becker was still only in his 40s.
What no one expected was the bankruptcy, and the utter stupidity of some of his decisions and justifications. How could a man like Boris Becker be so foolish or desperate that he’d invest, and then lose, millions of pounds in a Nigerian oil company? How could a gutsy performer like him not have the courage to own up to mistakes? How could he not have enough sense to at least show humility and remorse in front of all-powerful judges?
“One has the impression of a man with his head in the sand,” the registrar of Arbuthnot Latham & Co, to whom Becker owed around 3.3 million pounds, said about him.
And so Boris Becker, that freest of ball strikers, who bounced and gamboled around Centre Court, now finds himself caged in a cell in Wandsworth prison, a victim of pig-headedness and hubris, the very attributes that once won him big matches.
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