"Child prodigies don't always survive": Becker's poignant confession

"It was a recipe for disaster": In a BBC interview, Boris Becker recounts how his early triumph at Wimbledon changed his destiny, between glory, excess, and a dizzying fall.

Boris Becker has been opening up since the release of his autobiography 'Inside'. The German champion, the youngest Wimbledon winner at 17, had already admitted during the book's press presentation that this first Grand Slam title had turned his career and personal life upside down.

Statements he reiterated for the BBC in an interview published this Wednesday:

"If you remember other child prodigies, they generally don't make it to 50 because of the trials and tribulations that await them afterward.

Whatever you do, wherever you go, or whomever you talk to, it makes headlines worldwide. It makes the front page of the most important newspapers. And you're just trying to mature, to find your place in this world.

I'm happy to have won Wimbledon three times, but at 17, it might have been a bit too young. I was still a child. I had too much money. No one told me no, everything was possible. In hindsight, it was a recipe for disaster."

Becker spent eight months in prison in 2022 in the UK for financial fraud, before returning to the spotlight and regularly commenting on tennis news.