Boris Becker - The Player (Boris Becker: Der Spieler)

I think that when you get close to 50 as man, you start to think about

the good and bad decisions and how you reached this success,

which is something I never imagined possible.

I have been a celebrity for the last 30 years.

There is a price for that.

A FILM BY

London. Wimbledon District.

Becker gets on and it's over!

There is Becker,

he raises his arms towards Tiriac and Bosch, his coaches.

He runs towards the net and raises a fist up into the air.

Standing ovations for Boris Becker.

The biggest win so far for Boris Becker.

This looks like it could be really the start of a great sports career.

I wish to be buried right here where I am at.

Not in Germany or the United States, or someone takes my ashes

and throws them into the deep sea, like some other people have done.

I would like to be buried here.

Boris Becker and his wife, Lilly, live very close to the Center Courts.

It's where everything began.

She understands well that her husband belongs here.

The only thing she knew when she first met him

was that he had won here in the past.

The first impressions about Boris?

Boris is tall, blond, kind of scary if you don't know him.

He can be very distrusting at times and has

borderline anger issues, but he is funny.

WIFE

The house serves as

a place of remembrance for their patchwork family.

Three sons, one daughter.

News about a debt crisis that started in summer 2017

have put pressure on the family.

To be alongside Boris Becker, you have got to take it.

The good times and the bad times.

I think Germany forgets sometimes that when he won, he was Germany's darling.

And now, everyone tries to bring him down.

That was very hard for me to swallow. But because he took it on the chin,

it made me love him a little bit more.

When your family is attacked,

you can't help but protect everything around you.

Lilly and Boris have a son,

Amadeus.

They speak English to each other.

Amadeus is the center of attention.

He is his happiness.

Becker gets excited every time he hears his voice.

I have a lot of friends, but I don't have a best friend.

Nobody knows all of my secrets.

I count my true friends on one hand.

I have friendships

with people about specific things.

I share everything about a specific theme with them.

We share all the information about it with each other.

I would not feel good if one single person

would know everything about me.

Flashback to London, December 2016.

Boris Becker was one of the best tennis players in the world.

He understood the sport like no one else did.

He can make even the best, better.

The tennis circus is my home, I know my way around there.

It's my passion,

and I have a lot of fun. That's why I'm doing it.

Sometimes it's also exhausting,

unnerving, emotional, chaotic,

and also frustrating.

Boris Becker has a meeting with Novak Djokovic.

He is still his coach.

They meet each other.

Boris Becker helped him

to become number one in the world

They both cried after he won.

I think only a few people really understand this sport.

I think a lot sports reporters...

well, how could they know?

They never played professional tennis.

Surely some of them observed tennis for decades,

but it's a different story to watch or to play professional tennis.

There are no books or schools to learn that.

You have to play in order to feel the emotion,

the frustration, and the fear to lose.

There are moments when even a Grand Slam winner

gets nervous.

Like Novak had a problem last night

where he could not hold the racket anymore.

Nobody noticed, only me and him.

Secret practice,

in a separated court of the Queen's Club of London.

No witnesses, and all doors are secured.

Djokovic wants to be alone with Becker.

Despite their success together, there is a problem...

because he trusts his guru more than he trusts his coach these days.

He is like a volcano, charged, full of energy,

full of power, anger...

and emotion.

I have to guide him carefully through this training session.

I am glad he has this aggressiveness and fire in him.

But it has to be controlled or it's going to blow up in his face.

He gives clues through his posture and gestures

that need to be understood the right way.

I got better at it after some time.

Becker gained some advantage by working with Djokovic.

It helped his reputation,

but every coach has a limit.

Becker is missing to see his motivation.

He wants him to give it all he has.

Boris Becker considers himself too good for half-motivated players.

I gave him a good piece of last advice, and I hope he took it to heart.

He is a so-called shining light, he is the sun.

A lot of people around him get some sunlight,

who never got any before.

Some people cannot handle...

that kind of thing.

I have my own sun. I don't need his sunlight.

When I give him advice, it comes from the heart.

Shortly after, a decision was made: Becker quits his job as a coach.

You can prevent losing if you go out of your comfort zone.

That was always Becker's tenet.

His shuffling gait reveals that today.

Nobody can ever forget how he used to carry

his heavy body over the court...

never.

London, 1985.

The city gets ready for the Wimbledon tournament,

the most important tournament in the world.

Everyone wants to win here.

The year before, Becker used public transportation

to get the tournament.

He was not a nobody, but he was unseeded.

He was 17, and had won the big tournament in Queen's.

He got a lot of attention there,

but he was not the favorite for this tournament.

ARD-TENNIS REPORTER

He was unseeded and there were some games

with borderline performance.

It was important to win the first round.

BORIS BECKER'S COACH

Every round is like an endgame, every game of this tournament.

There were three games that looked like a loss.

Round 3, Becker vs. Joakim Nyström,

one of the favorites.

Nyström. He had two match balls and then it was Becker's turn.

BORIS BECKER'S MANAGER

Becker played the best when he was losing and under pressure.

He was always a fighter who never gave up.

I've said it many times, Becker won a lot of games that he should have lost.

He's always fighting, grasps for any chance that is given.

The next opponent: Tim Mayotte.

Tie Break. He falls, and he doesn't get up.

Boris was in shock.

Not so much for the pain,

but more the memory of what had happened the year before.

Damn! Not the same foot again.

Not the same ankle again.

He hobbles towards the net and puts his hand out

to signal that he wants to give up.

Luckily, Tim Mayotte was too far away from the net.

I told Bosch: Go and take his hand and call a doctor.

BORIS BECKER'S MANAGER

He got five minutes, and till the doctor arrives,

another 15 minutes.

That way he can rest.

"Boris, Boris."

"Günther! Go over there!"

You could hear Bosch and Tiriac calling him: Don't do it!

I went in and told him to call for a doctor.

That's what he did.

It was not as organized as it is today.

He had to walk through a mass of people to another court.

He got a bandage.

Mayotte did not know what was going on, he did not score once after.

He lost the fourth set.

That was it.

He had confidence without arrogance. He was still boyish, 17 years old.

He was clean cut, he looked like he may have just came out of school...

TENNIS HISTORIAN

...or even the church choir, and yet here he was

throwing himself around all over the place.

He was dramatic, he was charismatic.

The newspapers go crazy.

Damn it! The Germans did it again!

The verdict is in:

This boy is fantastic.

They are wondering: Who is this guy?

Leimen. A cute little town close to Heidelberg.

The birthplace of Boris Becker.

He grew up here.

He started with sports here.

If you can afford it, you build a house.

His father is an architect, the mother helps out in the office.

Boris has an older sister by four years.

She takes care of him.

He went to my husband and took a big tennis racket.

He was standing in the club in front of a wall

and was playing against the wall.

My mom would sometimes give me a sunhat for him

to put it on him so he wouldn't get a sunstroke.

One time I went back home and said to my parents

that I was concerned about my brother.

SISTER