When the frustration subsided, all I could think of was ‘When can I catch him, when can I catch him? What do I have to do? I have to play again.’ That left me without the desire to have a holiday, so I worked through the off-season. But it backfired on me. With the first tournament of 1991 taking place in Adelaide, I went to Australia in early December to get used to the heat and prepare for 1991. I lost in the first round in Adelaide to Magnus Larson, 7-6 in the final set.

I was mentally finished. I said I couldn’t take any more, it was too much of a burden, and I seriously considered not playing the Australian Open. It was still another three weeks away, and it was so goddamn hot in Adelaide, 42 and 43 ?C in the shade, that I just couldn’t handle it. Bob Brett was still my coach, and he said ‘Look, you’re here now, why don’t you just give it a try? You’re in Melbourne now where it’s sunny, back home it’s snowy and rainy.’ So I decided to stay, but without any great conviction.

Then in the third round of the Australian Open I played an Italian, Omar Camporese, and beat him in well over five hours, 14-12 in the fifth. That’s when I was tested. I was the favourite, but throughout the match I was on an emotional roller coaster. The match was played on an outside court; we started at three, and finished about nine. It was the longest match at the Australian Open until recently, at five hours and 11 minutes. At the end I felt I’d gone through hell – but I had come through it, and I was ready now. I went on to win the Australian Open and, just as importantly, become No. 1 in the rankings for the first time.

For me that was the end of a long journey. All the anguish that had started with losing to Edberg in the Wimbledon final six months earlier, that had continued with my failure to catch him as the year-end No. 1, and the manic start to the year that almost came to a crushing halt in Adelaide – I had come through it all and achieved my aim of seeing my name at the top of the rankings. I’d like to have had the perspective I have now, to have smiled sweetly and accepted the congratulations, but I was already at the edge of my emotions.

I bounced around with delight after shaking Lendl’s and the umpire’s hand at the end of the match, but then I ran out of the stadium. I didn’t want to be part of the ceremony. I said to myself, ‘This is my win, I don’t want to celebrate it with anyone’, and I ran to the hotel. One of the ground officials followed and talked some sense into me. He told me the whole world was watching and I had to come back to accept the trophy. But I was so wild, I told him ‘I’ve put so much effort into this, all the struggling in November and December, this moment is just for me.’ I did go back eventually, but there was a quarter-of-an-hour delay because I had run away. And I had run away, literally and metaphorically.

Getting to No. 1 and being able to say that I was the best in the world in my profession wasn’t an easy thing to handle. I said at the time that I couldn’t see myself staying there for five years, and I think from that point I started to think of different aspects of my life. In retrospect, from that moment tennis was no longer everything for me, but it took my Wimbledon experience six months later for me to really grasp the message.

So a lot had happened by the time I got to Wimbledon in June 1991, nearly a year after my defeat to Edberg. I was so tired and drained after Australia and didn’t play many tournaments, and the thigh injury came back to cut the middle out of my clay season. I did reasonably well, including reaching another semi-final at the French Open – people forget that and don’t give me credit for it. I’d lost the No. 1 ranking during the clay season, but I was within striking distance of regaining it. And when Michael Stich beat Edberg in four sets in the semi-finals and I beat David Wheaton, I knew I’d be No. 1, whether or not I won the final.

It all looked so good to the world. I was in the final, back at No. 1, and I had Katarina Witt in my box, which the German media loved because the golden girl of East Germany and the golden boy of West Germany were together (even though she was only ever a close friend, never a girlfriend). But emotionally I was a mess.

I had made up my mind before Wimbledon began that if I won the title, I would retire. And I meant it – or I would have definitely had a long break at the very least. I went into the final against Michael Stich knowing that if I won it, it would be my last match. That was a foolish thing to do, but it tells you where I was emotionally. I was tired of the whole thing, the whole machinery of tennis – the rankings, the travelling, everything. And as a result the final was a very frustrating match. I don’t think I’ve ever behaved so badly in a match as in that final. I think it was just my inner voice. I can’t watch the highlights now I was so miserable. And I lost in straight sets.

After the match, I remember going back to my rented house in Wimbledon with a sense of relief. And I just started crying. I’d never cried before, but I was in tears for a long time. I’m not the crying type, but I was venting my relief that I didn’t have to make the decision to retire which I’d promised myself I’d do if I won the final. So I felt good on the Monday morning that my journey would continue, but obviously the motivation went. I knew I had to look for something else besides tennis, because the game wasn’t giving me enough substance and satisfaction. I knew how to play it, I’d been doing it for a long time, I’d made some money, I’d been Wimbledon champion and I’d been No. 1, but what was the next motivation? The answer came to me then: I said ‘I have to get my private life in order.’

I realised that, in order for me to get back to the top and take it as seriously as I needed to, I just had to create a more balanced private life, which in effect meant I was looking for a wife. I needed a life away from tennis because tennis was killing me. That’s what made my idol Björn Borg stop at 25. Borg had no life outside tennis, and when you’re as emotionally wrapped up as we were, you need that. McEnroe, Sampras and Edberg were different; they never got as emotionally wrapped up as I did. Agassi was a bit like me; he needed his private life to be in balance to play well. At that point in July 1991, I felt my private life was more important than my professional life. I was very confused: the only thing I had was tennis; outside tennis I was troubled, and I didn’t have an exit strategy. I was only 24, and I knew what had happened to Borg – I didn’t want to stop, but I needed a reason to find the time to work at it.

My defeat to Michael in the Wimbledon final of 1991 was a tough loss. I would love to have won a fourth Wimbledon title, but I benefited from the loss more than if I’d have won. And yet if you play by the umpire’s call, I did win Wimbledon. John Bryson, who was in the chair for that final, made a mistake. When Michael won the winning point, Bryson said ‘Game Set and Match Becker’, and it was only after all the handshakes that he corrected himself and said ‘Game Set and Match Stich’. Given how much was riding on it for me, what an irony there was in that misspoken line! Two months later I met Barbara.