Boris Becker was already seen at the US Open game between Dominic Thiem and Alexander Bublik on the streaming portal Sport Germany TV; only the sound turned out to be a bit difficult: at first it couldn’t be heard at all, later it was just choppy. As nice as it is to Becker seeof course you want his expert and often very humorous analyzes of tennis hear – that’s also why people should pay 25 euros to be able to follow the last Grand Slam tournament of this year in German-speaking countries. But because listening was difficult, they first concentrated on watching Boris, and they realized: He’s not in New York, and he’s not in a studio either. That looks very much like a home couch in front of a white wall; and the sound was pretty much the same the entire time as you know it from video calls from Covid times.
“The dear American authorities see that very clearly,” said Becker, when you could hear him: “Of course I have a different visa than you because of my history.” You, this is commentator Matthias Stach, who pointed to the empty seat next to him; upstairs, in the reporter box at the top of Arthur Ashe Stadium. However: Thiem’s game took place on the Grandstand, and you can’t see it from this place. So Stach commented in front of a screen, just like Becker – one was a few hundred meters from the event as the crow flies, the other thousands of kilometers. So neither of them was really close.
This is a bumpy start for the Internet broadcaster, which belongs to the new media division of the German Olympic Sports Confederation (DOSB). He had recently secured the US Open rights, among other things Eurosport where the tournament and the duo Becker/Stach could be seen before.
The great times of tennis, when, for example, more than 14 million people watched Becker’s Wimbledon success in 1986, are over. At Eurosport, a total of four million viewers watched the 131 US Open broadcast hours last year. “Of course we would like tennis to be easy for the fans to see,” says Dietloff von Arnim, President of the German Tennis Association: “Now we’re excited to see what the US Open will look like. With the well-known double Becker/ But I am very confident that it will be a success.”
Becker commented on the 2022 Wimbledon tournament for the Sky Italia broadcaster from afar.
Only: Becker is needed on site for this – not only because of his undisputed expertise, but also because of the access. As a tournament winner in 1989, he received a special “Champions” accreditation from the US association, which allowed him to go almost anywhere on the facility, i.e. very close to the players, with whom he is of course very well acquainted. “That means I can go to them President’s Box and would even have gotten a hotel room for the next 14 days,” Becker said on Monday. What he also needs as a commentator: journalist accreditation. There was confusion. The Picture-Zeitung had reported that there was no application for accreditation for Becker; who said: “Unfortunately, a lot of nonsense is written about me in the German media. Of course that’s wrong.”
His expertise was also appreciated by Novak Djokovic – in 2015 the Serb won the Grand Slam tournament in the Queens district with the German US Open winner from 1989.
(Photo: Daniel Murphy/dpa)
The background that Becker mentioned is of course the prison sentence that he had to serve in a bankruptcy proceeding in a prison in London for false statements. He was released in December last year, but was not allowed to enter England in the summer, for example. He therefore commented on the Wimbledon tournament for the broadcaster Sky Italia from far. That shouldn’t happen at the US Open in New York; the US authorities are known to be very strict when it comes to visa applications from people with suspended sentences and are often in no particular hurry to issue them.
“My client applied for the necessary visa for the USA in good time and hopes that it will be issued in a timely manner,” said Becker’s lawyer Christian-Oliver Moser. Becker himself says: “Now I’m sitting on my packed suitcase, so to speak, and I hope every day for the positive news that I can pick up my passport and fly across the pond.” He wants to be heard and seen. In New York, very close to the action.