{"id":446522,"date":"2025-09-23T19:01:12","date_gmt":"2025-09-23T19:01:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/446522\/"},"modified":"2025-09-23T19:01:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-23T19:01:12","slug":"boris-becker-explains-why-he-now-regrets-winning-the-wimbledon-title-as-a-17-year-old","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/446522\/","title":{"rendered":"Boris Becker explains why he now regrets winning the Wimbledon title as a 17-year-old"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Boris Becker has been in the spotlight since his rise to fame as a teenager after winning Wimbledon.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Becker<\/a> won Wimbledon<\/a> for the first time as a 17-year-old in just his second appearance at The Championships in 1985.<\/p>\n

The German won six Grand Slam titles before retiring from tennis, with Becker going on to coach Novak Djokovic<\/a> and Holger Rune<\/a> after ending his tennis career.<\/p>\n

Becker also comments on current ATP players<\/a> when conducting his media duties, and he has now reflected back on the mistakes he made in his own tennis career.<\/p>\n

\"BorisPhoto by Steve Powell\/Allsport\/Getty ImagesBoris Becker wishes he had not won Wimbledon as a 17-year-old<\/p>\n

Becker is the fourth youngest Grand Slam champion in the Open Era, winning Wimbledon at just 17 years and 228 days old.<\/p>\n

The now 57-year-old has faced many challenges in his career and life since then, which he has now spoken about on the High Performance podcast.<\/p>\n

In this podcast interview, Becker revealed that he wishes he had taken a break in his tennis career in his mid-twenties, something he claimed could have extended his tennis career.<\/p>\n

\u201cActually the 17-year-old did alright. He was a, talking about myself here, a tennis machine. I played, I won the tournaments, number one,\u201d said Becker. \u201cReally up until I retired from tennis, that\u2019s when the problems started. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a time in my mid-twenties where I was burnt out, I was tired from tennis. Maybe in hindsight today, I would say at 25, take a break. Take a year off, see what you want to do, if you\u2019re still willing to pay the price to be the best tennis player you can be. You know, smell the roses a little bit. So, I didn\u2019t do that.<\/p>\n

\u201cI kept on, you know, I had contracts. There was responsibilities and so forth. So, I played that up until I was 32. Maybe I would have played longer if I would have taken a break at 25. I mean, now guys playing their mid-thirties, you know. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut then I stopped also, I had a bad injury, I had a bad right ankle and that needed to be fixed and I think that was another main reason why I said, \u2018Listen, I don\u2019t know if I\u2019m ever going to come back. You know, the surgery is going to be very bad\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Becker later spoke about his Wimbledon title win in particular, and admitted that he wishes his first Grand Slam victory had come at a later age.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not healthy winning Wimbledon at 17 in hindsight,\u201d added Becker. \u201cI\u2019d rather would have won it later. Maybe more often. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou know, I lost, I was in the seven finals, I lost four. So, that\u2019s something that still p***** me off today. So winning at 17 couldn\u2019t have been healthy, there was no normal way out of this, I know that today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Boris Becker\u2019s Grand Slam final record<\/p>\n

Becker is one of the most successful players in Grand Slam history, but he still feels he could have won more than six major titles.<\/p>\n

The German was in 10 Grand Slam finals in his career, with seven of those finals coming at Wimbledon.<\/p>\n

Six of Becker\u2019s 10 major finals were against two players, going unbeaten in his three finals against Ivan Lendl<\/a>, but only winning one of his three finals against Stefan Edberg.<\/p>\n\nGrand Slam<\/strong><\/td>\nBoris Becker\u2019s Final Result<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\nWimbledon 1985<\/td>\nBecker beat Kevin Curren (8), 6-3 6(4)-7 7-6(3) 6-4<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\nWimbledon 1986<\/td>\nBecker beat Ivan Lendl (1), 6-4 6-3 7-5<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\nWimbledon 1988<\/td>\nStefan Edberg (3) beat Becker, 4-6 7-6(2) 6-4 6-2<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\nWimbledon 1989<\/td>\nBecker beat Stefan Edberg (2), 6-0 7-6(1) 6-4<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\nUS Open 1989<\/td>\nBecker beat Ivan Lendl (1), 7-6(2) 1-6 6-3 7-6(4)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\nWimbledon 1990<\/td>\nStefan Edberg (3) beat Becker, 6-2 6-2 3-6 3-6 6-4<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\nAustralian Open 1991<\/td>\nBecker beat Ivan Lendl (3), 1-6 6-4 6-4 6-4<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\nWimbledon 1991<\/td>\nMichael Stich (6) beat Becker, 6-4 7-6(4) 6-4<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\nWimbledon 1995<\/td>\nPete Sampras (2) beat Becker, 6(5)-7 6-2 6-4 6-2<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\nAustralian Open 1996<\/td>\nBecker beat Michael Chang (5), 6-2 6-4 2-6 6-2<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

Although Becker is most associated with winning Wimbledon, where he is a three-time former champion, that is not where he won his final Grand Slam title.<\/p>\n

At 28 years old, Becker won his sixth and final Grand Slam title after beating Michael Chang in the 1996 Australian Open<\/a> final.<\/p>\n

Becker would only make four more Grand Slam appearances after winning the 1996 Australian Open, and he was unable to surpass the quarterfinals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Boris Becker has been in the spotlight since his rise to fame as a teenager after winning Wimbledon.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":446523,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4105],"tags":[4294,41535,79,1068,16,15,5068],"class_list":{"0":"post-446522","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-atp","9":"tag-boris-becker","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-tennis","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-wimbledon"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115255161058901589","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=446522"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446522\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/446523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=446522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=446522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=446522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}