{"id":160618,"date":"2025-09-22T08:25:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-22T08:25:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/160618\/"},"modified":"2025-09-22T08:25:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-22T08:25:10","slug":"boris-becker-54-opens-up-on-22-year-age-gap-with-wife-tennis-sports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/160618\/","title":{"rendered":"Boris Becker, 54, opens up on 22-year age gap with wife – Tennis – Sports"},"content":{"rendered":"

Boris Becker confessed he was “surprised” his wife remained by his side when he had “nothing”. The six-time Grand Slam winner was declared bankrupt in 2017 and subsequently sentenced to two-and-a-half years in jail<\/a> in late April 2022 after being convicted of concealing assets worth $3.4 million.<\/p>\n

Becker first gained fame as a 17 year old when he won the Wimbledon<\/a> trophy in 1985. He shone on the grass at the All England Club, securing another two titles at SW19.<\/p>\n

The German also claimed victory at the 1989 US Open and two Australian Open tournaments before retiring in 1999. He frequently appeared as a commentator on the BBC at Wimbledon prior to his imprisonment and coached Novak Djokovic from 2013 to 2016.<\/p>\n

Last September, Becker wed his third wife, Lilian de Carvalho Monteiro, in a ceremony in Portofino, Italy. On the eve of this year’s Wimbledon, he announced that Lilian, whom he first met in 2018, was expecting their child.<\/p>\n

The tennis legend was accompanied by his wife during an interview with The Times in Milan, where he discussed a range of topics, including his time in jail and the horrific death threats he received.<\/a><\/p>\n

Becker, who is 22 years older than his wife, spoke openly about Lilian during the conversation. He disclosed: “She is obviously a very attractive woman, but I felt that from the first day we had lunch together alone, we had this instant intellectual connection.<\/p>\n

“Even though she’s 20 years younger I feel like she has an old soul and I like to think my soul is a bit younger, so we met in the middle. I was a little bit surprised that women still stay with you if you have nothing. I didn’t experience that much before.”<\/p>\n

Speaking about his time behind bars, he shared: “I can even go as far as it maybe saved my life because I’m a better man now than I was before.<\/p>\n

“It’s embarrassing but I’d never used the kettle. I had my wife, my kids, someone, if I wanted tea. I wasn’t making my own tea. Never happened.”<\/p>\n

DON’T MISS<\/p>\n

He also offered some wisdom for life: “Do whatever you have to do today. Yesterday is over and tomorrow nobody knows what’s going to happen.<\/p>\n

“I was the best tennis player in the world for a while and I feel like I have that mindset again. And, if I go a little bit off, I have a wife who’s watching me like a hawk.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Boris Becker confessed he was “surprised” his wife remained by his side when he had “nothing”. The six-time…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":160619,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,85,747,6414],"class_list":{"0":"post-160618","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-tennis","12":"tag-tennis-section"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160618"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160618\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/160619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}