Becker loses love game

Boris Becker says the couple have no plans to divorce

The day after he announced that he was separating from his wife Barbara, Boris Becker has denied newspaper allegations that he left her for a pop star.

He explained the reasons for the split in Bild newspaper: "There was no concrete reason - it was just a development that had been building up for quite some time.

"There were no third parties that were the cause of this step,"

However, on Wednesday German newspapers focused on a 26-year-old hip-hop artist, Sabrina Setlur, the daughter of an Indian banker and nurse, as the reason for the Beckers' separation.

Front page news

Newspapers reported the Becker and Setlur - once voted Germany's "most erotic woman" - had been seen together in posh restaurants near Setlur's house.

The announcement on Tuesday that the Beckers were separating, but not divorcing, was front page news in many Germany dailies and the lead item on evening news broadcasts.

The couple married in December 1993 and have two sons, aged six and one, but times have not been easy for them.

Becker admitted last year that he had considered leaving Germany because he feared for the safety of his family living in Munich.

"I have a black wife and black children and I'm not just talking about it, I live this problem day to day," he said as right-wing racist violence in Germany was on the upsurge.

"But it is not a German problem, it is an international problem," he added. "You have it in France, you have it in the United States.

They were the dream couple - they were unbeatable, inseparable.

  Sueddeutsche Zeitung

Barbara Becker said in interview released on Sunday that she was considering putting her own career back on track.

"For the last nine years I have put my career as an actress and a singer to rest," she told Sunday newspaper Bild am Sonntag.

The paper said she had just struck a lucrative advertisement deal and would promote caffeine-free Coca-Cola in commercials to be shown on German television from next February.

Meanwhile, Germany continues to come to terms with their separation.

"They were the dream couple," wrote the Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper. "They were unbeatable, inseparable. It's all over."

"Were they just fooling each other all along," asked Julia Boenisch, a B.Z. columnist. "Or were they just fooling all those people who believed in real love?"