Above the players’ entrance at Wimbledon’s Centre Court read the words of Rudyard Kipling: “If you can meet triumph and disaster and treat those two imposters just the same”.
At Wimbledon, Boris Becker has experienced both. It is the place, he says, he was ‘born’ in winning the title for the first time as a wide-eyed 17-year-old, and one where he cannot return this summer after being deported following his release from prison in December.
Triumph and disaster are, aptly, the two episode titles of Oscar winner Alex Gibney’s fascinating documentary ‘Boom! Boom! The World versus Boris Becker’, which is released on Apple TV+ on Friday.
It first charts the German’s meteoric rise to become tennis’s poster boy and then dissects his demise to ending up behind bars at Wandsworth Prison, just a few miles away from the scene of his biggest triumphs.
It begins with Becker at his rawest, breaking down in tears just days before being sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison for hiding £2.5million of assets in order to avoid paying his debtors.
“It’s tough, it’s tough,” he says. “It’s very hard. It’s hard. I’ve hit my bottom. I face it, I’m not going to hide or run away. I accept whatever sentence I get. There’s a reason why this is happening. My life has always been a little bit different than most other lives.”
It is that difference which lured Gibney to the project, beginning almost as an homage to a “tremendously exciting player and a good storyteller, which is a rare combination”. Then, deep into the project, it took, as the American filmmaker describes it, a turn he did not expect with the court case.
The documentary gives perhaps the truest representation yet of Becker, from the man himself, but also those closest to him — a juxtaposition of interviews continually picking holes in his version of events.
One minute, Becker is talking about throwing out his sleeping pills — for a time he had an addiction — after losing to Stefan Edberg, the next, his first wife reveals she actually flushed them down the toilet two years later.
It is that art of deception which made Becker such a tough-to-read opponent on the tennis court, but also played a big part in his eventual undoing. As Gibney puts it: “When you get into a bad spot, you want to deceive yourself into thinking that you’re not in a bad spot and you’ll come out on the other side. That’s great in tennis, but that can be dangerous in real life.”
Becker’s original manager, Ion Tiriac, perhaps best sums him up when he says he is still that young boy who likes to stick his finger too close to the flame.
Part two of the documentary is the more compelling, focusing on his travails, such as the infamous dalliance with Angela Ermakova in a broom cupboard — although Becker stresses it was a back room — that resulted in a daughter.
The story also shows Becker the fantasist, claiming in one newspaper article at the time that his sperm had been stolen by the Russian mafia. But, as Ermakova rightly concludes: “I didn’t take him down, he took himself down.”
It is a theme that continues in the downfall: the sizeable loan to a billionaire with a crazy interest rate of 25 per cent; the faux diplomatic status involving the Central African Republic; the bunch of hippies taking over a £10m Spanish villa he had deserted.
Such moments have only added to his tabloid allure, both in his homeland and in England, Becker liking to joke that he is Britain’s most popular German.
Gibney, who has spent time with Becker since the film’s premiere at the Berlin Film Festival, believes he is contrite for his past misdemeanours.
In the documentary, Becker says himself: “I’m blaming me,” but there is still the sense in the interviews since his release that he has been unfairly treated. It supports the judge’s ruling at Southwark Crown Court that there was career humiliation but no humility.
Amid it all, Becker also comes across as a victim, too generous to all those around him, as well as badly advised along the way.
He has been to the very top and, more recently, rock bottom. Now comes the redemption. A return to Wimbledon, which he called home for so long, would be the perfect setting for his rebirth.
“That’s not the end yet,” he says. “There’s going to be another chapter.”
It’s anyone’s guess how the story ends.
