Boris Becker’s 1989 U.S. Open males’s singles trophy, the one recognized U.S. Open males’s singles trophy to be auctioned publicly from the U.S. Open period, offered at a tennis public sale on Sunday for $357,546 (together with purchaser’s premium), making it the best worth ever paid for a tennis trophy.
That is the second most costly piece of tennis memorabilia ever offered, after Novak Djokovic’s 2012 Australian Open championship racket ($540,000), which was offered in February.
In 1989, Becker gained Wimbledon and the US Open, serving to West Germany win their second straight Davis Cup. He was named ATP Participant of the 12 months.
As Lott’s description factors out, Grand Slam singles trophies “just about by no means” attain the general public market. The US Open trophy has a storied partnership with Tiffany & Co., with Becker loaning the trophy to the Worldwide Tennis Corridor of Fame earlier than giving it away in an notorious chapter continuing in 2019.
Mr Becker declared chapter in 2017 and was discovered responsible in a London court docket on 4 costs underneath the Chapter Act, together with eradicating property, concealing debt and two counts of failing to reveal property. (Becker was acquitted of 25 different costs, together with 9 counts of failing to show over Grand Slam trophies and Olympic gold medals to a chapter trustee.)
He owed collectors $62.5 million for unpaid loans of $3.75 million.
Mr Becker was sentenced to 2 and a half years in jail and served eight months in a London jail earlier than being launched early underneath the expedited deportation program for international nationals.
In 2024, Becker was launched from a London chapter court docket. The choose dominated that he had performed “all the pieces moderately doable” to repay his collectors, however had fallen far quick.
