“In prison they tried to kill me.” Boris Becker tells the nightmare lived in prison. The former German tennis player has served eight months in prison in two English penitentiaries. At the end of April the former German champion had been sentenced to two and a half years in prison for fraudulent bankruptcy, confined for three months in London’s Wandsworth prison and then transferred to Huntercombe prison, in Oxforshire, where he remained for the last five.
“One appreciates freedom only after being in prison”
To the German broadcaster Sat 1Becker confessed that “an inmate tried to kill me“. At the Cnn, the former number 1 in world tennis talks about the experience in depth. “Let me say that one appreciates freedom only after being in prison. It’s another world: I’ve been out for three months and I’m happy to be alive. Prison is dangerous. I had seen a couple of movies before going in, just to prepare myself a bit. But I didn’t expect it to be so scary – it really is a punishment. Jail is supposed to be like this, but it really is a punishment to be deprived of liberty.”
“If you don’t humble yourself then you are totally lost”
In prison, “the only currency you have is your personality. It’s better to make friends with the toughest ones because you need protectionyou need a group to watch your back,” says the German ahead of the documentary’s release Boom! Boom! The world against Boris Becker (are Apple TV on April 7). “If prison doesn’t humble you, I don’t know what does. When you lose everything and find yourself in a tiny cell for 231 days, if you don’t humble yourself then you are totally lost“.