Europe News

Boris Becker splits up with Dutch girlfriend

Nov 21, 2007, 15:59 GMT

Hamburg - Boris Becker has split up with his girlfriend Sharlely 'Lily' Kerssenberg, friends of the former tennis star said Wednesday.

Becker and the Dutch model were last seen in public together at the MTV Europe Music Awards on November 1.

'We came to realize in the course of time that we stood for different lifestyles. In such a situation you have to be honest with each other,' Becker told the magazine Revue.

The 40-year-old father-of-three told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa that he wanted more children. 'Children are my priority. I can't imagine how it was for me without children,' he said.

Becker said he had not given up hope of marrying again, although there was no other woman in his life after the split with Kerssenberg.

The tennis icon was married to actress Barbara Feltus from 1993- 2001. Sons Noah Gabriel, 13, and Elias Balthasar, 8, are from that marriage.

His 7-year-old daughter Anna is from a brief fling in 1999 with Russian model Angela Ermakova.