The Player

Boris Becker was born in Leimen, West Germany, in 1967, and burst onto the international tennis scene in 1985 when, as an unknown 17-year-old, he rewrote the record books by beating Kevin Curren and winning the men’s final at Wimbledon. On the back of his enormously powerful serve, he took the world of tennis by storm and by 1991 he was the world’s number one player. His extraordinary career includes three Wimbledon men’s singles titles (he reached the final seven times in ten years) among a total of 49 singles and 15 doubles crowns, and he became the second youngest player (after Bjorn Borg) to be inducted into tennis’s Hall of Fame. Retiring from the pro-tennis scene in 1999, Becker refused to fade away — his name simply moved from the back pages of newspapers to the front.