Boris Becker denies bankruptcy and applies for restraining order to stop auction of his Wimbledon trophies

Boris Becker has denied that he is bankrupt and announced that he is taking out a restraining order to prevent the sale of his trophies.

The retired tennis champion said in comments published Sunday that his lawyers will be applying for a restraining order to stop an auction of his belongings, which includes Wimbledon trophies he won at the height of his career.

"Next week, my lawyers in England will apply for a restraining order to stop the auction," he told Germany’s Bild am Sonntag tabloid. 

"This auction is all about hurting me personally because of course I'm emotionally attached to the trophies."

It is thought that the online auction, which is due to conclude on Thursday, will raise many thousands of pounds for his creditors, as it includes prized possessions such as trophies, watches, tennis shoes and a signed photograph from the president of Germany after Mr Becker won Olympic gold.

Becker told the Mail on Sunday: "The whole world is asking, 'How can you pay for dinner? How can you pay for your flat? We thought you were bankrupt'.

"But as far as I'm concerned, I've paid all I owe."

The application for a restraining order comes as the former world number one and Wimbledon champion, continues to claim that he has a genuine diplomatic passport from the Central African Republic, despite officials dismissing it as a fake.

Becker claims that the passport grants him diplomatic immunity from bankruptcy proceedings in the UK.

"I have received this passport from the ambassador,” he said on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show.

"I have spoken to the president on many occasions. It was an official inauguration. I believe the documents they are giving me must be right."

The three-time Wimbledon champion has been served with a series of denials from CAR officials about the issue.

“When you mention Boris Becker, people lose their reality or their sense of facts and they start imagining things that are absolutely not true,” Becker said.

Legal proceedings are not the first tactic the disgraced tennis champion has used to try and cling on to his belongings. 

On 23 June the Telegraph reported that Mr Becker was being urged to “remember” where some of his prized trophies were, after he claimed to have forgotten where he had put three of his most valuable, from Wimbledon.

One of the trophies, which was awarded for Becker's straight-sets victory over Ivan Lendl in the 1986 Wimbledon final, was discovered in the care of Becker’s mother, Elvira, who says it was a “gift” from her son.

Mark Ford, director of Smith & Williamson, which is handling the bankruptcy, said his team had visited the German property to look for items they could auction.

The whereabouts of the other two trophies, from 1985 and 1989, remain unknown.

Memorabilia from Becker’s career is being auctioned online by Wyles Hardy & Co, the British company that also sold off the possessions of disgraced financier Bernie Madoff.

Some of the items were taken from Becker’s house in Heidelberg. Others came from the BBC pundit’s rented home in Wimbledon, south-west London, including four wristwatches.

At the High Court last week, a judge suspended the discharge of Becker’s bankruptcy in order to grant the trustees further time to search for assets.