50 facts about Boris Becker: German former world No. 1 professional tennis player

Becker has been the youngest Wimbledon men's champion when he was 17. Learn 50 facts about Boris Becker.

1. His full name is Boris Franz Becker.

2. He is a German former world No. 1 professional tennis player.

3. He is a six-time major singles champion.

4. Has been the youngest Wimbledon men's champion when he was 17.

5. He also won 13 Masters Series titles, five elite indoor titles (three ATP Tour Finals, a WCT Finals, and a Grand Slam Cup).

6. Won an Olympic gold medal in doubles.

7. Tennis magazine ranked Becker the 11th best male player of the period 1965-2005.

8. Becker was born in Leimen, Germany.

9. Is the only son of Elvira and Karl-Heinz Becker.

10. His mother was Catholic, and they raised him as a Catholic.

11. His father Karl-Heinz, an architect, founded a tennis centre in Leimen, where Becker learned the game.

12. Becker turned professional in 1984, under the guidance of Romanian-born coach Günther Bosch and Romanian manager Ion Ţiriac.

13. Won his first professional doubles title in 1984 in Munich.

14. As a German teenager, Becker won the Tennis World Young Masters at the NEC in Birmingham in 1985, before taking his first top-level singles title in June that year at Queen's Club.

15. Became the first unseeded player and the first German to win the Wimbledon singles title, defeating Kevin Curren in four sets. Unseeded, Becker was at that time ranked 20th in ATP ranking, but Wimbledon did not then seed players beyond the top 16.

16. He was the youngest ever male Grand Slam singles champion at 17 years, 227 days (a record later broken by Michael Chang in 1989, who won the French Open when he was 17 years, 110 days).

17. Becker became the youngest winner of the Cincinnati Open.

18. Becker has since said that "The plan from my parents for me was to finish school, go to university, get a proper degree and learn something respectful. The last thing on everyone's mind was me becoming a tennis professional."

19. In 1986, Becker successfully defended his Wimbledon title, defeating world no. 1 Ivan Lendl in straight sets in the final.

20. In 1987 Becker, then ranked world no. 2, was upset in the second round of Wimbledon by the world no. 70 player, Peter Doohan.

21. In the Davis Cup in 1987, Becker and John McEnroe played one of the longest matches in tennis history. Becker won 4-6, 15-13, 8-10, 6-2, 6-2 (at that time, there were no tiebreaks in the Davis Cup). The match lasted 6 hours and 22 minutes.

22. Becker was back in the Wimbledon final in 1988, where he lost in four sets to Stefan Edberg in a match that marked the start of one of Wimbledon's great rivalries.

23. Becker also helped West Germany win its first Davis Cup in 1988.

24. He won the year-end Masters title in New York City, defeating five-time champion Lendl in the final. The same year he also won season ending WCT Finals for the rival World Championship Tennis tour, defeating Edberg in four sets.

25. In 1989, Becker won two Grand Slam singles titles, the only year he won more than one.

26. In 1989, Becker was named Player of The Year by the ATP Tour. The world no. 1 ranking, however, still eluded him.

27. Becker reached the final of the Australian Open for the first time in his career in 1991, where he defeated Lendl to claim the world no. 1 ranking.

28. He was ranked world no. 1 for twelve weeks during 1991, though he never managed to finish a year with that ranking.

29. In 1992, Becker won seven tour titles including his second ATP Tour World Championships defeating Jim Courier in four sets.

30. By 1993, issues back home over his courtship of and marriage to Barbara Feltus, whose mother was German and father was African-American, and tax problems with the German Government, had caused Becker to slide into a severe mid-career decline.

31. Becker was ranked world no. 2 during Wimbledon in 1991 and reached his fourth consecutive final there.

32. Becker and Stich teamed in 1992 to win the men's doubles gold medal at the Olympic Games in Barcelona.

33. Becker defeated Jim Courier in straight sets to win the 1992 year-end ATP Tour World Championships in Frankfurt.

34. In 1995, Becker reached the Wimbledon final for the seventh time, by defeating Agassi in the semifinals.

35. Becker's sixth and final Grand Slam title came in 1996 when he defeated Chang in the final of the Australian Open.

36. After winning the Queen's Club Championships for the fourth time, Becker was widely expected to mount a serious challenge for the Wimbledon title in 1996, but his bid ended abruptly when he damaged his right wrist during a third-round match against Neville Godwin and was forced to withdraw.

37. Becker defeated Sampras in October 1996 in a five-set final in Stuttgart. "Becker is the best indoor player I've ever played", said Sampras after the match.

38. Becker lost to Sampras in the final of the 1996 ATP Tour World Championships in Hanover.

39. Becker was most comfortable playing on fast-playing surfaces, particularly grass courts and indoor carpet (on which he won 26 titles).

40. He reached a few finals playing on clay courts, but never won a clay-court tournament in his professional career.

41. His best performances at the French Open were when he reached the semifinals in 1987, 1989, and 1991.

42. Over the course of his career, Becker won 49 singles titles and 15 doubles titles.

43. Besides his six Grand Slam titles, he was also a singles winner in the year-end Masters / ATP Tour World Championships in 1988, 1992, and 1995, the WCT Finals in 1988 and at the Grand Slam Cup in 1996.

44. He won a record-equalling four singles titles at London's Queen's Club.

45. In Davis Cup, his career win-loss record was 54-12, including 38-3 in singles.

46. He also won the other two major international team titles playing for Germany, the Hopman Cup (in 1995) and the World Team Cup (in 1989 and '98).

47. Becker won singles titles in 14 different countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Qatar, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States.

48. In 2003, Becker was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame.

49. He occasionally plays on the senior tour and in World Team Tennis.

50. He is also sometimes a commentator at Wimbledon for the BBC.