Becker splits with girlfriend as tax evasion charges loom

GERMAN tennis star Boris Becker has split up with partner Patrice Farameh, a day after prosecutors announced tax evasion charges against him.

She told reporters the two had decided to break up because they had lost their “synergy”.

Iranian-born Farameh, 28, is an internet specialist who was together with Becker, 34, for five months after meeting in a Munich restaurant.

“Boris and I had a wonderful time together. It was an unforgettable, passionate experience, because he is a fascinating, intense man of character,” Farameh said.

“Unfortunately we lost our synergy,” she said. “Last weekend in London was our last chance to save our relationship. We tried very hard.”

The three-times Wimbledon tennis champion had said in March he was finding happiness with Farameh.

His life had been in turmoil since he retired from tennis in 1999. A messy divorce ensued from his wife of seven years, the German-American Barbara Feltus. He agreed to a multi-million dollar settlement.

Becker then admitted fathering a baby girl in London with a Russian model, Angela Ermakova, and promised to support the child. Becker has said he spun into a mid-life crisis after his father, Karl Heinz, died in 1999.

News of the split from Farameh broke a day after Munich prosecutors said they had brought charges against Becker alleging tax evasion.

Becker has been under investigation for allegedly claiming his residence was in Monaco, a tax haven, while actually living in Germany.

“There is sufficient reason to suspect tax offences,” said the head of the Munich public prosecutor’s office, Manfred Wick, who declined to specify the charges.

Wick said the Munich district court had not yet decided whether the charges were admissible for court action to proceed.

Becker’s communications director Robert Luebenoff could not be reached for comment about the break-up or the tax charges. Friends of Becker’s said the relationship failed because Becker wanted to live up to his responsibilities as father of his two children from his marriage to Feltus.

The former world number one became the youngest Wimbledon men’s champion in 1985, aged 17 years and seven months, and remained a major sports figure in Germany since retiring. The tax case echoes the woes of Germany’s other tennis great of the last decade, Steffi Graf, whose father Peter spent nearly two years in jail after being convicted in 1997 of evading $7 million in tax on his daughter’s earnings.