Former Wimbledon champion Boris Becker unveiled his luxury Dh3 billion project – The Boris Becker Beach Resort & Tennis Academy – in Dubai yesterday and promised it would deliver something different to the region.
To be finished by 2010 on Ras Al Khaimah's Al Marjan island in a sea turtle design, Becker was brimming with enthusiasm as he revealed his plans for the project which he will co-own.
He told XPRESS: "I think the spectrum is very wide. There is a target group. But it's also for people who love Dubai and come by as well as for the local talent that want to know about the Boris Becker way of playing tennis."
He added: "I think it can open the chance [for Emirati players]. With my name, with my knowledge and the team we have, we want to separate ourselves from some of the others. We speak about it but we have to deliver."
Becker, one of the finest serve and volley players the game has seen explained why few players approach the net these days.
"A lot has to do with racket technology. Players don't have to come to the net any more. They can win through the power they have from the baseline, even further from that. So the serve-and-volley game itself wasn't practised. It's unfortunate but that's how it is," he said.
The six-time grand slam winner also backed Roger Federer's performances this year. "You cannot really say something went wrong," Becker argued. "He won the US Open, that's not so bad, and he had two other finals.
"He ran into a Nadal who is playing the tennis of his life. Roger is still very much the number two player in the world so he's very much in control."
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