Boris Becker knows all about pressure and winning. He was 17-years-old when he won Wimbledon in 1985, the youngest player to win a Grand Slam. He would go on to win a further five Grand Slams as well as numerous other trophies in his glittering career, and when it was all over, he looked back and asked: ‘Where do you go when you’re the best in the world? What’s next?’
It’s a question many sports professionals ask when they end their careers, and not just world champions like Becker. Curtis Woodhouse was just a normal soccer player bouncing between a number of smaller English teams during his career, but when he retired, he became a professional boxer and went on to win a couple of titles. Meanwhile, Olympic gold medal swimmer Michael Phelps and NBA legend Allan Iversen turned to the green baize and chips of poker to keep the adrenalin flowing.
Tennis players are not immune to the lure of the cards, with a number of high-profile names enjoying the thrill and excitement of their next ace – among them the aforementioned Becker. We’re going to look at some of the famous names who swapped the courts for the tables in recent years.
Rafa Nadal
With 22 Grand Slams under his belt, the 36-year-old Spaniard has dominated the game for the best part of a decade now. Known for his heavy topspin and breaking serve, serial winner Nadal showed his human side when he broke down in tears after playing his last game with his rival of the past 10 years, Roger Federer. Don’t expect him to show his emotions so transparently on the poker table, though. Until now, his poker has been mostly consigned to the changing rooms and charity events; he once played and lost to then-female poker number one Vanessa Selbst, but as his career winds down, who’s to say Nadal won’t be transferring that focus and concentration back to the turn of a card!
Boris Becker
For mere mortals, it’s impossible to imagine what it must be like to be a world champion at the age of 17. While most of us were looking forward to college, Becker was playing and beating the best players in the world, accumulating a small fortune along the way. He kept his Wimbledon title in 1986, and in 1989 as a 21-year-old, he won Wimbledon for the third time and added US Open, the Davis Cup as well as a semi-final in the French Open for good measure. It was always going to be difficult to replicate that early, heady success, but after retirement, Becker turned his hand to poker. He signed up for a celebrity team for an online platform and competed in professional tournaments on the European and the World Poker Tour. Becker is also revealed by Poker.org to have been a brand ambassador for PokerStars Team Pro and GGPoker. The cards haven’t been falling his way recently. As CNN.com reported, the German ace was jailed in early 2022 for hiding assets while filing for bankruptcy in 2017.
Yevgeny Kafelnikov
It’s always going to be difficult to follow up such tennis heavyweights as Becker and Nadal, but Russian Kafelnikov is perhaps one ex-pro who performed well in his new career. His golden era came in the late 1990s when he won the French and Australian Opens and was even ranked world number one for a single, glorious week. He also won four Grand Slam doubles in that time. Taking to cards, he competed at the 2005 World Series of Poker in Las Vegas, where he came ninth in the Seven-Card Stud. And it isn’t just poker – he has also played golf on the European Tour!
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