BORIS BECKER

I met with my lawyers. They gave me all the wrong advice. For a long time I refused to accept the child was mine. I should have met her, arranged a DNA test and accepted my responsibility.

I lost in the second round of the French Open and had 10 days off. I went to the Hard Rock Cafe. It was exciting to be away from my parents, to stay in a hotel. Hotels at 17 meant freedom.

Does anyone ask their parents how they are conceived?

Girls had never been important. I'd had a girlfriend or two and had liked them a lot but it wasn't love, because my first love was tennis.

It's silly to say it about a tennis player, but I'm an unbelievable hero in Germany. And Germany needs heroes more than any place.

The suit-and-tie job is very nice but it's not really who I am in my heart.

An autobiography is not about pictures; it's about the stories; it's about honesty and as much truth as you can tell without coming too close to other people's privacy.

When I was a child, I had posters of James Dean in my room. I was a big admirer of his work and was fascinated by him living on the edge. Looking back, my life was kind of the same.

The eyes of some of the fans at Davis Cup matches scare me. There's no light in them. Fixed emotions. Blind worship. Horror. It makes me think of what happened to us long ago.

A few years after my first son was born, he wanted to know how we chose his name, so I began reading him the story of Noah's Ark.

That's the hard part about sport: as men we haven't started to be in our prime, but as athletes we are old people. I needed support. I lost trust and did stupid things.

Where do you go when you're the best in the world? What's next?

I want to be a hero, a small and good kind of hero, even though I know heroes have very short lives.

If I go into a club now, all the blonde girls leave my corner and all the black girls come into my corner. It's as if I'm racist towards white girls!

I believe that everything in life happens for a reason.

Tennis is a psychological sport, you have to keep a clear head. That is why I stopped playing.

I love the winning, I can take the losing, but most of all I Love to play.

I go to my favourite tournament, I talk about my favourite sport and it's just a great month of parading.

I don't know how many millions of photographs have been taken of me.

So this is it. Match point for eternity.

I'm not a God, I make mistakes.

I believed in raising my children as I had been raised.

When you are thrown onto the stage at 17 in such an enormous way, it becomes living on the edge because every step you take, every word you speak, every action you do becomes headline news. And it became, for me, life or death.

I go to London, my favourite city in the world, and I feel at home.

It was a confusing time in my life, a really bad day at the office.