Boris Becker's US Open Trophy Sells for Hundreds of Thousands of Euros

Boris Becker's 1989 US Open men's singles championship trophy was sold Sunday night through The Tennis Auction, becoming one of the most expensive pieces of tennis memorabilia ever publicly sold.

According to the auction house, this marks the only US Open men's singles champion trophy from the Open Era ever made available on the public market. Becker famously claimed the trophy by defeating Ivan Lendl in the final, securing his sole US Open title and the fourth of his six Grand Slam victories.

The sale of the trophy is directly linked to the former German tennis player's well-documented financial troubles. The item, originally on loan from Becker to the International Tennis Hall of Fame Museum in Newport, R.I., only became public due to the champion's bankruptcy proceedings in 2019.

Becker was found guilty of four charges related to his bankruptcy case, including the illegal failure to surrender assets and trophies intended to settle his debts. The former world No. 1 was sentenced to 30 months in prison in April 2022, serving approximately eight months.

Matt Cashin, founder of Prestige Memorabilia and The Tennis Auction, revealed that the trophy had previously been auctioned in 2019 as part of the same bankruptcy process, fetching around $190,000 (161,200 euros) at the time. Cashin's estimate for this new sale was approximately $250,000 (212,110 euros), but the final value exceeded expectations by over $100,000, or 85,000 euros.

«It's hard to imagine [another Grand Slam trophy coming to market] for quite some time, simply because these players never want to part with their trophies,» Cashin told The Athletic. «They are like the holy grails of their careers. So, it was definitely an unusual circumstance that Becker had to part with it. It was, without a doubt, a very rare opportunity we had.»

A unique opportunity that cost exactly 302,893 euros!

Despite the impressive sum, this is not the most expensive tennis item ever sold publicly. That record belongs to the racket Novak Djokovic used in the 2012 Australian Open final, when he defeated Rafael Nadal in the longest Grand Slam final in history, selling for $540,000 (458,157 euros). However, the sale of Becker's trophy doubled the previous record for The Tennis Auction platform, which was $173,066 (146,780 euros) for an autographed racket Carlos Alcaraz used in the 2023 Wimbledon final.