At the end of 2011, Claudia Kohde-Kilsch was literally at her wits’ end: “Whenever I received invitations to events, I blamed it on illness because I wouldn’t have been able to pay for the journey.” The now 61-year-old has more than two million dollars in prize money She earned money as a tennis professional for 15 years, but her stepfather Jürgen Kilsch was “one of those people who just can’t handle money.”
Claudia Kohde-Kilsch reflects openly, honestly and mercilessly on her life and career in her autobiography “Regenpause”. She ended up in court in 1999 with Jürgen Kilsch, who largely financed her assets; the trial only ended with Kilsch’s sudden death in 2004.
Ex-husband leaves Kohde-Kilsch in the lurch
At that time she had already been married to the late pop singer Chris Bennett, the father of her son Fynn, for four years. The marriage failed and he left her with a mountain of debt. “The reminders and enforcement notices in my mailbox kept piling up,” she writes. She was always happy on Sundays, “because it’s the only day of the week when the post office doesn’t deliver.”
In 2011 she filed for bankruptcy and then “started her entire financial life from scratch.” During that time she also met her partner Sven Kielmann, who “fought so hard for me” and who “has stood behind me like a rock ever since.” Claudia Kohde-Kilsch now lives in her Saarland homeland with Kielmann and her four-legged friend Filou (“My soul dog”).
She used to be a global citizen. “I was in the top ten in singles for longer than Mike Tyson was world boxing champion,” she writes in her book. “CKK” was above all one of the world’s best doubles players; alongside Czech Helena Sukova, she won Wimbledon and the US Open, among others, and reached the final three times at the Australian Open and the French Open. The tour was much more family-like back then: “There were a few players with whom I was good friends.”
Triumphs with Steffi Graf – detour into politics
Steffi Graf was probably not one of them, although Claudia Kohde-Kilsch still speaks of her former companion with appreciation and respect: “We always got along well. You have to keep in mind that it wasn’t like that with our fathers.” Together with Steffi Graf, Kohde-Kilsch won the Federation Cup against the USA in 1987 and Olympic bronze in Barcelona in 1988: “Steffi Graf is one of the best athletes in Germany and the world have ever seen.”
In 2012, Claudia Kohde-Kilsch began a detour into politics. In May she was appointed press spokesperson by Oskar Lafontaine and the Left parliamentary group and sat for the Left on the Saarbrücken city council from 2014 to 2019. In 2019 she joined the SPD, from which she left in 2024 after internal intrigues. She “doesn’t have the ambition to kick others away brutally and without regard to losses. That’s not who I am and I can’t do that.”
Oskar Lafontaine and Claudia Kohde-Kilsch at the state candidate election in Saarbrücken in 2013. picture alliance / dpa | Becker & Bredel
At the end of her memories, Claudia Kohde-Kilsch thanks her family, friends and companions. Also with Jürgen Kilsch: “Forgiveness is the hardest love, I would like to send that to you in heaven. Rest in peace.” (dpa/tm)
