Boris Becker: Double fault

Boris Becker's transition from idolised sports star to respected sports analyst - and from sex symbol to family man - has been hit by blows to both his professional and personal life.

Becker had impressed media commentators over the Wimbledon championship, sharing the commentary box with John McEnroe, a rival from his playing days.

And with his 8-year-old son, Noah, sitting alongside him, Becker seemed to be approaching middle age as a model father.

But it was revealed this week that the three-times Wimbledon champion is being investigated in Germany for suspected tax evasion, which could lead to a prison sentence.

It was also disclosed that he has parted from his most recent girlfriend, Patricia Farameh.

Becker, 34, has been under investigation for allegedly claiming his residence was in Monaco, a tax haven, while living in Germany.

The German news magazines Focus and Der Spiegel reported that prosecutors believe he was registered in Monaco in the early 1990s but lived at the time in his sister's loft in Munich. Investigators maintain his business was conducted in Germany and he has to pay taxes in the country.

"There is sufficient reason to suspect tax offences," said the head of the Munich public prosecutor's office, Manfred Wick, who declined to specify the charges.

Wick said the Munich district court had not decided whether the charges would go to court.

Becker burst on to the sports scene in 1985 when, as an unknown 17-year-old, he rewrote the record books by winning the Wimbledon title.

Not only was he the youngest player ever to win, he was also the first unseeded player to become champion and the first German.

His style of play was based around a huge serve that earned him the nickname "Boom Boom". On the grass at Wimbledon he threw himself around for diving volleys that left his knees bleeding and shattered the morale of his opponents.

And if anyone thought his win in 1985 was a fluke, he came back the next year and did exactly the same thing again.

From 1985 to 1993 he was never out of the top 10, and in 1991 he became world No 1 after winning the Australian Open, a title he also picked up in 1996.

His Wimbledon victories came against Kevin Curren, Ivan Lendl and his greatest rival, Stefan Edberg, although the Swede did beat Becker for his two titles in 1988 and 1990.

Becker also won the US Open in 1989 and recorded 49 tournament victories in his career.

But he was always much more than a great tennis player. Pete Sampras has won more than twice as many titles but Becker always had twice as much sex appeal.

From his earliest days, girls would camp all night outside his hotels. Becker was not only a startling player and good looking, he had idealistic appeal.

Ion Tiriac, the hard-headed Romanian who was once his business manager, said: "Those years - 85, 86, 87 - Becker was the most natural, clearcut youngster I ever saw. He didn't know how to lie, didn't need to lie, didn't need to find excuses or hype or cry when he was losing. That's what made human beings around the world identify with him."

When, at the age of 19, he lost at Wimbledon, Becker pointed out: "I didn't lose a war. Nobody died".

He wore a Greenpeace badge, supported Amnesty International and mused about German triumphalism, although playing for his country in Davis Cup ties he scored an amazing 38 wins against just three defeats.

Then in 1991 he met Barbara Feltus, a black model. The couple were the targets of a torrent of racist abuse.

Undaunted, they posed, apparently naked, for the cover of Stern magazine and in 1993 they married. They had two children and the fairytale won over the German public.

Becker was paid millions to be the face of DaimlerChrysler and Tag Heuer among others, and he and Barbara, daughter of a German mother and black former American Army officer, were the symbols of the new Germany.

In November 2000 Becker was among marchers in Berlin, protesting against racist violence. But before the year was out the fairytale marriage was heading for the courts in an acrimonious split.

Barbara sued for substantial support and custody of their two children, Noah and Elias.

Boris' lawyers claimed the children had been kidnapped. He also warned that his endorsement contracts contained confidentiality agreements that would be broken if details of his income were discussed in open court.

His wife's lawyers maintained that the kidnap threat was only a pretext to lower the settlement amount and complained that Boris' "formidable paramilitary staff" had intimidated his wife.

Worse was to come. Adding new meaning to the phrase about coming out of the closet, a Russian waitress and model, Angela Ermakova, made public her claim that she had had a daughter to Becker after they had sex in a broom cupboard at London's Nobu restaurant.

Becker's first claims that her story was false were quickly exploded with the results of DNA testing, and the costs of his divorce were compounded by payments to Ermakova that will eventually total around US$1.5million ($3.07 million), bringing his marital bill to an estimated US$18 million ($36.9 million)- formidable even to someone of Becker's earning power.

Becker might have had a "para-military staff" but his support was collapsing. His longtime business manager and friend Axel Meyer-Wolden died of cancer in 1997, and two years later Becker's father, Karl-Heinze, died.

Becker has blamed his early mid-life crisis on his father's absence.

His love life continued to make the headlines and he had a well-publicised affair with rapper Sabrina Setlur, once voted Germany's most erotic woman.

When they split in May last year Setlur said: "The pressure we were under was enormous. It is extremely hard to build something when one doesn't have a private moment".

This week Becker would not comment on the end of his latest romance. But Farameh, a philosophy graduate, told the German newspaper Bild am Sonntag that the two had decided to break up. Iranian-born Farameh, 28, was with Becker for five months.

"Boris and I had a wonderful time together," she said. "It was an unforgettable, passionate experience, because he is a fascinating, intense man of character.

"Unfortunately we lost our synergy. Last weekend in London was our last chance to save our relationship. We tried very hard."

His tax case echoes the woes of Germany's other great tennis champion of recent times, Steffi Graf, whose father, Peter, spent nearly two years in jail after being convicted in 1997 of evading US$7 million ($14.3 million) in tax on his daughter's earnings.

Becker remains a hugely popular figure in Germany and his sponsorships continue, although his other ventures have not fared so well.

His appointment as Germany's Davis Cup manager ended in tears in 1999 because of rows with the leading player, Nicolas Kiefer.

Coaching overtures with Australia's Mark Philippoussis and Becker's fellow countryman Tommy Haas came to nothing.

Like many a sportsman before him, Becker is still struggling to be reborn after his glory days. The latest events have done nothing to make that rebirth any easier.

- INDEPENDENT and staff reporter