Becker unlucky in love as tax charges loom

German tennis star Boris Becker has split up with his girlfriend Patrice Farameh, a newspaper reported on Sunday, a day after prosecutors announced tax evasion charges against him.

She told Bild am Sonntag newspaper 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 him 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 multimillion-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 break-up from Farameh broke a day after Munich prosecutors said they had brought charges against Becker alleging tax evasion.

TAX HAVEN

Becker has been under investigation for allegedly claiming his residence was in Monaco, a tax haven, while in fact 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 go ahead.

Becker's communications director Robert Luebenoff could not be reached for comment on Sunday about the break-up or the tax charges.

Bild am Sonntag quoted an unnamed friend of Becker's as saying 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. He has remained a major sports figure in Germany since retiring.

The tax case echoes the woes of Germany's other great tennis darling of 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.