Tennis stars in the Hanseatic city: Serena Williams and Boris Becker were the prominent highlights of the OMR Festival in Hamburg. As expected, it wowed the crowds – he had some news ready.
Where was he? Boris Becker doesn’t know exactly, has to think about it. “Laureus Awards?” asks OMR boss Philipp Westermeyer. That’s right, Becker remembers: Lionel Messi, Carlos Alcaraz, Paris. Becker is back on the road, busy after his nine-month jail term for bankruptcy offenses. He has been free since December, sits in Hamburg on Wednesday evening: festival stage at prime time instead of 20 hours in a single cell.
“OMR” stands for “Online Marketing Rockstars”, a meeting of successful start-up founders and financially strong company bosses. Becker, a relegated German public, is an unusual guest. “There are more important things than money,” says Becker. And is deliberately remorseful. “If you don’t do that after a while, you haven’t learned anything.”
Boris Becker: “I paid my price”
He calls jail his “heaviest defeat,” and the audience cheers for him constructively. “I’ve paid my price, but I’m standing again and looking forward powerfully,” says Becker, whose appearance is called “Second serve” – it’s supposed to be a new beginning.
With a new place of residence: Great Britain delivered the prominent prisoner to Germany on probation, but Becker didn’t stop there. “There was a lot of speculation: where is he now? Is he sleeping under his friend’s sofa? No: I moved to Italy.” In the home of his girlfriend Lilian de Carvalho Monteiro, he is already learning the language. Becker feels he is in the right place: “The Italians still like my lifestyle to this day, they don’t find it unusual.”
Becker is also known in his new homeland of Italy
He wants to bring a fashion brand to Italy, comment on tennis again for Eurosport, and set up an academy for young players near Frankfurt. And the German Tennis Association is currently looking for a new role for him. He is aware that he is being followed at every step – he is also recognized in Italy.
“No matter what I do, it’s like the package insert: with risks and side effects. That suits me,” says Becker. “The worst thing for a brand is when nobody talks about it anymore. In Germany, people sometimes talk about me too much.”
Remorse, concise sentences, a fighter mentality: Becker presents himself to the marketing rock stars as a PR professional who wants to be back in the limelight. “It’s a phenomenon that third parties are always allowed to speak about me, but I didn’t get a chance to speak for myself. And that’s not good, that has to change.”
Power woman Serena Williams rocks the hall
He still has fans, that became clear in Hamburg, but he wasn’t able to mobilize the masses as well as the previous speaker. Tennis queen Serena Williams made sure that cellphones were plentifully pulled out and that the hall was packed with 7,000 people. She is the international top star at the fair in Hamburg, invited as a 23-time Grand Slam winner, successful businesswoman and icon of equality. “When I invest, then only in women,” says Williams and reaps applause.
Serena Williams, former tennis player, in Hamburg
After her 23rd title, she gave birth to daughter Olympia in 2017, after which she made a remarkable comeback. In the fall of 2022 she finally stopped, and in early May she announced she was pregnant again. She hopes to be able to enjoy the time more this time than the first time, as a mother she is just as ambitious as as a professional: “I’m not satisfied with being second best.”
She is the power woman that visitors want to see and hear. When Boris Becker appeared afterwards, half of the crowd left the hall.
