The oft-negative hoopla surrounding Andre Agassi’s more-than-revealing bio “Open” got me wondering: How did Boris Becker’s 2004 book “Boris Becker: The Player” manage to sneak under the radar seemingly with only the slightest of squawks? (At least on this side of the Atlantic.) Surely, it wasn’t for a lack of juicy tidbits, including his struggles with drug addiction. The German legend dismisses his July ’99 rendezvous with Russian model Angela Ermakova as “a thoughtless bit on the side during a tumultuous phase of my life.” Although he admits the whole affair “was careless, stupid and irresponsible,” he defends himself, asserting, “I’d had a bit on the side at an extraordinary moment in my life. This wasn’t a crime…” Of the incident itself, which occurred at a trendy Japanese restaurant in London’s exclusive Metropolitan Hotel and brought his marriage to Barbara Feltus to an end, Becker says it was merely “five minutes of small talk, then into the nearest suitable corner for our business.”
Among other revelations, Becker says he:
•Struggled with a drug addiction during his playing career. By ’87, Becker says he had turned to “sleeping pills to fight the sleeplessness; painkillers to ease the pain. For loneliness, there were women, whiskey or both.” He also confides that he was “half-asleep” in a match against Miloslav Mecir at the Aussie Open in ’90, and in his “own private fog” in a match against Stefan Edberg in Stockholm in ’91.
•Was held in the airport after a Frankfurt-to-Miami flight when it was discovered he didn’t have a visa due to his recent tax conviction. Becker says he was forced to wait for hours, including a stint in a “stale, windowless room smelling of sweat. Venezuelans, Colombians and a couple of prostitutes from Bogota were being deported — and one Mr. Becker in among them.” He was eventually escorted onto an Air France flight and sent back to Europe.
•Occasionally wore a black wig to avoid being spotted.
•Thought of match preparation as “being in prison.”
•Is named after Russian poet/author Boris Pasternak.
•Once asked his wife to shoot him on an October night in Munich.
•Battled with fame early in his career, confiding, “I no longer understood the Germans — nor the whole world, in fact — and I don’t know how to escape from this suffocating embrace,” and that “Volkswagen was probably the only German product that was better known than I was…My private life had ended. It was like sitting on the lavatory with the whole world watching.”
•Was once fascinated by Steffi Graf: “It wasn’t the infantile falling-in-love of a teenager that made me want to get to know Steffi better,” he writes. “It was a deep feeling of affection, an unexpressed understanding between like-minded people who shared the same fate.”
•We all know the Germans like their sports cars, but Becker reveals an almost unhealthy infatuation with luxury autos:
“I steer my green Ferrari…”
“I’d occasionally take my Porsche 959 or my Carrera Turbo out on the motorway…”
“I was flying over the motorway in my M-Class Mercedes…”
“A friend had lent me his blue Mercedes 500…”
“There’s nothing wrong with driving a Porsche Cabriolet [in Monaco], or even — should I feel like buying one — an orange Lamborghini…”
“The family car was a BMW, then later a Mercedes…”
“I was able to persuade him to change from a Mercedes 300 to a 500 model — a present from me…”
“I drove up in my black Mercedes M-Class…”
(If you haven’t yet guessed, Becker has enjoyed a long association with Mercedes.)
