Boris Becker won the International Sports Book of the Year award at the Sports Book Awards in London on Thursday, with his memoir Inside. Gewinnen, verlieren, neu anfangen taking the prize at the gala inside the Kia Oval cricket stadium. Lilian de Carvalho Monteiro accepted the award on his behalf while a recorded thank-you speech from the former tennis great played on screen.

Becker, 58, could not attend because he is still barred from re-entering England after his deportation from Great Britain. He was sentenced in London in April 2022 to two and a half years in prison for insolvency offences after being convicted that year of hiding assets worth millions.

The win gives one of tennis’s most recognizable names a public redemption moment in the same city where his career and his legal troubles were both judged. His book, published by HarperCollins, has already gone far beyond the sport section: Inside became an international bestseller and reached number 1 on the Sunday Times bestseller list in the UK.

Monteiro told the audience that her husband was at home looking after their daughter, Zoë Vittoria Becker, who turned six months old on the day of the ceremony. She said she knew he would one day return to London and to Wimbledon, the tournament that helped define his place in the sport.

Becker said in his speech that he had not won a prize for a long time and that the award was a very special pleasure. He said he had beaten two high-profile athletes in the competition, including books about Ayrton Senna and Carlos Alcaraz. He also said that for most of his life people had judged him publicly, first as a tennis player and later as a person, and that it mattered to tell his own story in his own words.

The memoir deals with his time in prison, shame, loneliness and fear, and with the effort to build a new life after release. Becker spent 230 days behind bars in England, and the award suggests the most difficult chapter of his life has also become the one most likely to define his next act. For now, the former Wimbledon champion remains unable to enter the country where that chapter unfolded.