Wonderful World of Tennis / Barry Millns / 04 March 2008 /

From the friendly rivalries of Borg/McEnroe, Evert/Navratilova and Sampras/Agassi to cut-throat gestures and unsavoury bumping incidents, here are some of the famous friends and foes of tennis

Great sporting rivalries are what we all enjoy watching and professional tennis is no exception, be it Borg vs. McEnroe, Evert against Navratilova, Sampras vs. Agassi or Federer against Nadal. While all of them have had huge mutual respect for each other's craft it would be wrong to suggest that close friendships have always been forged as a result, but at least their battles have never been tainted by personal animosity.

Yet there have been certain individuals down the years who have clearly got under each others skin and taken a great dislike to one another.

Back in 1990, at the inaugural Grand Slam Cup in Munich, I remember watching fellow-Americans Brad Gilbert and David Wheaton square up to each other mid-match. Only the intervention of tournament referee Ken Farrar prevented them from coming to blows, Wheaton complaining afterwards that Gilbert had "invaded my space".

Then there was the infamous 'bumping' incident between Romania's Irina Spirlea and Venus Williams at a change of ends in the semi-finals of the 1997 US Open. And more recently Juan Ignacio Chela of Argentina was fined for 'unsportsmanlike conduct' for spitting at Lleyton Hewitt during their fractious third round match at the 2005 Australian Open.

Two rounds later Chela's compatriot David Nalbandian also got irritated by the Australian's vocal antics and bumped shoulders with him, all of which led to a fiery build-up to a Davis Cup tie between the two countries later that year. And it did not end there, Nalbandian stating in 2006 ahead of another Davis Cup encounter that he and his team-mates all disliked Hewitt and that "no-one is friends with him".

But that was rich coming from Nalbandian who that same year accused Tim Henman, no less, of bad sportsmanship and called him "the worst rubbish there is"! Henman's many friends on the tour would strongly disagree and unlike the former British No.1, Nalbandian has hardly been the most approachable or amenable player on tour to date.

A few years ago the same could be said of former world No.1 Marcelo Rios. For all his undoubted talent with a tennis racket, the Chilean rarely endeared himself to his peers or those watching him and not surprisingly he was a regular winner of the infamous 'Prix de Citron' at Roland Garros, awarded each year by the world's tennis media to the most 'difficult' player throughout the season.

Another member of the current crop who tends to stoke up the opposition is Robin Soderling. He did it with Federer once in Halle and the Swede's mimicry of Rafael Nadal (currently trading at [9] to win this week's Dubai Championships) during their epic but ill-tempered match last year at Wimbledon, caused the mild-mannered Spaniard to comment later that "In the locker room, for other players he's not the best guy".

But it is not just certain players who have made themselves unpopular - tennis parents too at times have badly overstepped the mark. When Mary Pierce was a teenager, her father Jim routinely hurled abuse at her opponents and once shouted from the stands, "Mary, kill the bitch!"

Sadly, in the eyes of many, Maria Sharapova's father Yuri is the modern equivalent. His court-side antics have long infuriated other Russian players, with Anastasia Myskina even vowing never to play on the same Fed Cup team as Maria, and only a few weeks ago the latter's quarter-final dismissal of world No.1 Justine Henin at the Australian Open was marred by Yuri's despicable throat-slitting gesture!

'.$sign_up['title'].'

'; } } ?>

:

:

:

?

: