{"id":315481,"date":"2025-11-29T01:37:16","date_gmt":"2025-11-29T01:37:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/315481\/"},"modified":"2025-11-29T01:37:16","modified_gmt":"2025-11-29T01:37:16","slug":"boris-beckers-relationship-history-children-everything-we-know-about-his-wives-and-children-explained","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/315481\/","title":{"rendered":"Boris Becker’s relationship history, children: Everything we know about his wives and children, explained"},"content":{"rendered":"

He’s a former world number one tennis player<\/a> who is considered one of the greatest of all time.<\/p>\n

Boris Becker<\/a> won 49 singles titles during his years at the top of the world tennis circuit in the ’80s and ’90s.<\/p>\n

But his complicated love life has drawn almost as much attention. Becker has been married three times<\/a> and has five children to four women, including one famously conceived in a restaurant tryst while his pregnant wife was in hospital.<\/p>\n

Boris Becker is now married to third wife Lilian de Carvalho Monteiro. (Getty)<\/p>\n

Becker was born in Germany on November 22, 1967.<\/p>\n

His father Karl-Heinz founded a tennis centre where a young Becker learned to play, before he began competing as a child.<\/p>\n

At nine, he was chosen for the German Tennis Federation’s top junior team and by 16 he had turned professional.<\/p>\n

By the time he met his future first wife Barbara Feltus in 1991, he was the world’s number one men’s tennis player and had already won the Wimbledon Men’s Singles title three times and the US Open.<\/p>\n

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The German athlete was the world number one tennis player in 1991. (Getty)Barbara Feltus<\/p>\n

Feltus was a German-American model and aspiring actress when she and Becker met at Harry’s New York Bar in Munich, Germany.<\/p>\n

About 18 months later, Becker proposed by dropping a diamond ring into her cocktail.<\/p>\n

They wed on December 17, 1993, and welcomed two sons \u2013 Noah, who was born in 1994, and Elias, who arrived in 1999.<\/p>\n

The couple was in London for Wimbledon in June 1999.<\/p>\n

Becker had been defeated that day during a fourth round match with Aussie Pat Rafter. It would end up being Becker’s final professional match.<\/p>\n

Becker and Barbara Feltus wed in 1993, at the height of his career. (FilmMagic, Inc)<\/p>\n

Feltus, who was pregnant, had been experiencing discomfort so she checked herself in to hospital to be monitored.<\/p>\n

While his wife was in hospital, Becker went out to London’s Nobu restaurant, where he met a Russian model named Angela Ermakova.<\/p>\n

In his 2003 autobiography, The Player, he described what happened next.<\/p>\n

“She looked directly at me, the look of the hunter that said, ‘I want you’,” he wrote.<\/p>\n

“There she was again, walking twice past the bar. And again, this look. A little while later she left her table for the toilet. I followed behind.<\/p>\n

“Five minutes [of] small talk and then straight away into the nearest possible place and down to business.”<\/p>\n

While it was often reported the two had sex in a public toilet or broom closet, Becker revealed the act occurred on a flight of stairs between the bathrooms.<\/p>\n

“Afterwards she went off, I had another beer, paid and went back to my hotel,” he wrote.<\/p>\n

“As there wasn’t any news from the hospital I went to bed around 2am.”<\/p>\n

The next day, he and Feltus returned to Germany. He wrote that he didn’t give his previous night’s antics a second thought.<\/p>\n

They welcomed their son \ufeffElias in September 1999.<\/p>\n

The couple pictured with son Noah in 2000. (Ron Galella Collection via Getty)<\/p>\n

But eight months after the encounter in London, Boris said he received a fax telling him Ermakova was pregnant.<\/p>\n

She gave birth to a daughter, Anna, in March 2000, but Becker initially denied he was the father.<\/p>\n

On learning of his infidelity, Becker said his wife was “surprised” but “not hysterical”.<\/p>\n

“Certainly, my straying hastened the split with Barbara. The tensions had been getting worse for months,” he wrote.<\/p>\n

They broke up soon afterwards and divorced in 2001.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the paternity case went to court, where Becker’s lawyer sensationally claimed Angela had stolen his sperm to become pregnant.<\/p>\n

Angela Ermakova with daughter Emma \u2013 Becker’s lovechild. (Getty)<\/p>\n

He eventually settled the matter and later sued her mother for joint custody after becoming concerned about how she was being raised.<\/p>\n

Lilly Kerssenburg<\/p>\n

After a brief engagement in 2008 to Alessandra Meyer-W\u00f6lden, the daughter of Becker’s adviser and manager, Axel Meyer-W\u00f6lden, Becker started a relationship with Dutch-born model and actress Lilly Kerssenberg.<\/p>\n

They married in 2009 and welcomed their son Amadeus in 2010.<\/p>\n

They were together until 2017, when Kerssenburg reportedly initiated their split.<\/p>\n

In 2023, she claimed he was constantly unfaithful and lied about their finances during their marriage, and tried to destroy her for leaving him.<\/p>\n

Becker with second wife Lilly Kerssenburg. (Getty)<\/p>\n

She also claimed he rarely saw their son and paid no child support.\ufeff<\/p>\n

“I left him in 2018, and he can’t forgive me for that. You don’t leave Boris Becker,” she said.<\/p>\n

“When I left five years ago, he took away my house and car keys.<\/p>\n

“He threw me and our son out of the house. I didn’t have a penny in cash, didn’t know where to go. We spent the first night on a bench in a cafe.”<\/p>\n

Becker declared bankruptcy in 2017.<\/p>\n

\"borisBecker with son Amadeus in 2014. (Getty)<\/p>\n

\ufeffIn 2022, he was found guilty in a London court of four charges and sentenced to 30 months in jail for failing to hand over assets and trophies to repay a bankruptcy debt, but was released in December that year after serving eight months. \ufeff<\/p>\n

Lilian de Carvalho Monteiro<\/p>\n

Becker met Lilian de Carvalho Monteiro through friends in 2018.<\/p>\n

Despite a 22-year age difference, \ufeffthey hit it off after they met at a birthday party of a mutual friend.<\/p>\n

Becker wrote about meeting \ufeffMonteiro in his new book Inside: Winning \u2013 Losing \u2013 Starting Over.<\/p>\n

“It’s April 2018. My life is anything but smooth: I’ve been insolvent for almost a year and recently separated from my second wife,” he wrote.<\/p>\n

\"BorisBecker with third wife Lilian de Carvalho Monteiro. (AP)<\/p>\n

“Suddenly there’s this young woman, quite tall. She doesn’t look at me.”<\/p>\n

After he introduced himself to her the next day, he learned she was “very educated and intelligent and speaks five languages”, and had her own career.<\/p>\n

For a daily dose of 9honey, subscribe to our newsletter here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He said she initially refused to give him her phone number after reading about his “divorces, financial problems, and scandals”.<\/p>\n

After they met again a year later, he eventually got her number and they shared their first kiss during a lunch date.<\/p>\n

Their relationship blossomed after she moved to London in 2020.<\/p>\n

\"BorisBecker and Monteiro welcomed a daughter this week. (Instagtram\/@borisbeckerofficial)<\/p>\n

\ufeffThey married in Portofino in September 2024, with only Becker’s two eldest children, Noah and Elias, reportedly invited to the nuptials.<\/p>\n

They announced in July this year they were expecting their first baby together.<\/p>\n

This week, Becker and Monteiro announced the arrival of daughter Zo\u00eb Vittoria Becke on November 21, one day before Becker turned 58.<\/p>\n

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