http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/tennis/3257874.stm
Honesty the best policy for Becker
By Caroline Cheese
I think it's more important to be respected than to be loved
Boris Becker's former manager Ion Tiriac once said Becker "didn't know how to
lie, didn't need to lie".
The shocking revelations from the German legend's recently published
autobiography would appear to bear that out.
The book details, among other things, the brief encounter with a Russian model
in a cupboard which resulted in Becker's third child, and the moment he stood
almost naked on his balcony and asked his then wife to shoot him.
Becker is angry that extracts have found their way into British newspapers
before the launch of the English translation in June.
"My book was unfortunately translated in a very poor way by people in England,"
he told BBC Sport.
"People have taken bits and pieces and they haven't got the idea of it at all."
The idea is that Becker explodes the myths about his life, but in his case the
truth is sometimes far more sordid than even the tabloid tales.
The day that ended with Becker in a restaurant cupboard with Angela Ermakova be
gan with his last ever match at Wimbledon, and was followed by him going out dr
inking instead of looking after his heavily pregnant wife.
He might have withheld such details but the 36-year-old insists he would much r
ather people read the truth through his own eyes, than a version of it through
someone else's.
Becker became a worldwide star at the age of 17
"Other people decide to speak about me without knowing me and it's frustrating
because it gets to a point where I am portrayed in a totally different light,"
he said.
"So now whether it's on television, or in a book, or whatever, I have to tell t
he facts in my eyes and then nobody can say that I'm not honest.
"Otherwise too many people who have no clue about my life just write about me a
nyway. If I don't think they're right, I have to give an answer."
Becker was once the epitome of the 'golden boy', a fresh-faced teenager who
took Wimbledon by storm and became the flame-haired hero of Centre Court.
His status was only enhanced by his engaging attitude to the sport and the exce
sses of fame.
When the tabloids' darling lost his Wimbledon crown in 1987, Becker responded
to the outcry by musing: "I didn't lose a war. Nobody died."
In a career spanning 15 years, he won six Grand Slam titles, less than half tha
t of Pete Sampras, but he was and remains one of very few tennis players to tra
nscend the sport and become a worldwide star.
England's Rugby World Cup hero Jonny Wilkinson said he had been so
overawed to see Becker at the recent BBC Sports Personality of the Year awards
that he spent half the evening staring at him.
Becker's autobiography is already a bestseller in his native Germany
Revelations about Becker's private life, and a recent two-year suspended jail s
entence for tax evasion, have apparently not diminished the public's adoration.
However, his image, which was once the wide-eyed teenager, has altered vastly s
ince he burst into our consciousness in 1985.
"I think it's more important to be respected than to be loved," said Becker.
"There is a very thin line between love and hate. I think I have great respect
in Germany, and throughout the world.
"They like my honesty, they like the fact that I'm critical of myself."
His reputation will take a further battering in Britain when the English versio
n of his autobiography, in which he also admits to periods of drug and alcohol
abuse, is launched ahead of Wimbledon 2004.
However, it seems unlikely that its publication will make any difference to Bec
ker's universal appeal - indeed, perhaps his human failings are the very reason
he continues to inspire such adulation.
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德國金童幾幀珍貴的照片~他真的…還是很紅~XD
德國不朽的運動巨星，舒米也曾拿他說過。
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