German tennis legend Boris Becker said on Monday he could sympathize with golf great Tiger Woods, who has announced an indefinite break from professional sports after admitting to adultery.
Becker, who went through a high-profile divorce in 2001 after it emerged that he had fathered a child with another woman during a brief tryst in a London restaurant, said he was familiar with a media maelstrom over sex.
“I experienced basically the same thing and can sympathize with him,” he told ARD television in an interview to be broadcast later on Monday.
PHOTO: EPA
Becker, 42, said he hoped Woods could reconcile with his wife, Elin Woods, who has reportedly hired a Hollywood divorce lawyer, but acknowledged it would be “damn hard.”
“There are all these stories that keep emerging. Whether they are true or not doesn’t matter anymore. Every week there is a new woman,” Becker said, in excerpts from the interview published by Bild newspaper.
Becker, a hobby golfer who said he had met the 33-year-old Woods on a few occasions, expressed surprise about the number of women with whom the golfer reportedly had extramarital affairs.
“I was shocked by the dimensions, the frequency,” he said. “All the things he would have had to cover up, just logistically — how did he manage to do it? He must constantly be changing phones to cover up his tracks.”
The youngest man to win Wimbledon and a six-time Grand Slam singles champion, “Boom-Boom” Becker has remained an A-list celebrity in Germany.
He is now expecting his fourth child with his second wife.
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