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Tennis Gets Hot and Heavy
Increase in Co-Ed Events Sparks More Love Matches; Federer as ‘Eye Candy'
By HANNAH KARP
In the tennis world, Fernando Verdasco is on a tear. Not only has the 25-year-old Spaniard shot up to No. 8 in the world rankings, he has already dated two of the most sought-after bachelorettes on the women’s tour, Ana Ivanovic and Gisela Dulko. Recenty he has become close with Denmark’s Caroline Wozniacki, though she says they’re just friends.
Serbian tennis player Ana Ivanovic, top wearing scarf, watches former boyfriend Fernando Verdasco at a tournament last year.
Defending the title of ATP playboy, though, is Czech Radek Stepanek. He was engaged to Martina Hingis, is dating Nicole Vaidisova and is known for charming ladies with his sense of humor and a victory dance he calls “the worm,” which he debuted at a player party in the Austrian Alps several years ago after a big win and a little too much Schnapps.
“Everyone was very impressed,” recalls Mr. Stepanek, adding that he hopes his popularity with beautiful women, a subject of much speculation on tennis forums, is “because of who I am as a person.”
Wimbledon kicked off this week without Rafael Nadal, the world’s No. 1 player, but there’s still plenty of heated competition behind the scenes as players battle to win mates as well as matches. With the advent of text-messaging and social networking, a bevy of new co-ed tournaments, parties and training centers and a growing disparity between the salaries of players and their hangers-on, the lives of men’s and women’s tennis players are more intertwined than ever. Adding to the excitement, there are 10-times more female players on the tour than there were 30 years ago and many of them are now being marketed for their good looks as much as their skill.
The bump in romance—and the possibility of romance affecting play—has put British bookmakers on guard. “If we heard that Roger or Andy were having relationship problems, we would factor it in,” says Rupert Adams of the London-based bookmaker William Hill.
Among this summer’s love matches: Igor Andreev, who beat Vincent Spadea this week, is inseparable from Maria Kirilenko. Dominika Cibulkova, the 20-year-old Slovakian who defeated Urszula Radwanska, recently split from her second ATP beau, Austria’s Jurgen Melzer. (Her first, France’s Gael Monfils, was charming at dinner parties but wasn’t “a relationship guy,” says Ms. Cibulkova’s coach, Vladimir Platenik.)
Newlyweds Roger Federer and Mirka Vavrinec
Much to the dismay of many female players, Mr. Federer married one of their own in April, former pro Mirka Vavrinec, and is officially off the market. “He was great eye candy,” says France’s Marion Bartoli, who took his picture off her wall after she heard the news.
Love on the tour is hardly new, of course, and Wimbledon has always been the one tournament where players can field more nosy questions about their personal lives, thanks to Britain’s tabloid circus, than they do about tennis. In 1974, Chris Evert was engaged to Jimmy Connors when they both won singles titles at Wimbledon, and the couple was dubbed “the Love Match,” though they later broke off the engagement. Andre Agassi married Steffi Graf in 2001, though Ms. Graf retired after Wimbledon in 1999, soon after they started dating.
Anna Kournikova, who made her much-hyped Wimbledon debut 12 years ago at the age of 16, says the tour social life was relatively boring compared to nowadays—there were far fewer player parties and her mother didn’t let her stay late at the ones she went to.
View Full Image
Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf
Thirty years ago, just catching a glimpse of players of the opposite sex at the four Grand Slams each year was a thrill. Leslie Allen, a former WTA player who joined the tour in 1977, recalls an early WTA ritual: ranking the male tennis players based on their looks. “We’d choose a captain and a co-captain—we had a whole ranking system,” says Ms. Allen, now a coach at Riverdale Country School in New York.
In recent years, growing prize money, the growing system of specialized junior tennis academies and a new alignment of the men’s and women’s tours have changed things. Today, the ATP World Tour and WTA Tour share 16 combined events a year, up from seven 20 years ago. Each one has its own player kickoff party, regular co-ed marketing events and social perks that include concert tickets and movie passes.
Meanwhile, insiders say the extra cash sloshing around on the tour allows players to visit their significant others on the tour more frequently between tournaments—and has also made players more wary of groupies or outsiders who may only be interested in their money.
Female tennis players ranked in the top 20 earn roughly double what they did 15 years ago, with the top-ranked woman, Serena Williams, grossing a total of about $3.8 million last year, compared to Ms. Graf’s $1.5 million in 1994. Men’s earnings have also increased: Mr. Nadal earned $4.25 million in 2008, compared to Andre Agassi’s $2 million in 1995.
All athletes wrestle with the distractions of romance in their personal lives, but tennis is one of the few professional sports where players must face love interests and old flames on almost a monthly basis on the courts and in player hotels. Dr. John Mayer, a Chicago-based sports psychologist and president of the International Sports Professionals Association who has worked with two dozen professionals on tour, likens tennis to high school or Hollywood.
View Full Image
Jimmy Connors and Chris Evert
“It’s kind of an incestuous world,” says Dr. Mayer. When it comes to romance, he says, even the most accomplished male players tend to behave like “neanderthals” and female players like “giggly Jonas Brothers fans.” This often results in “very adolescent” relationships, he says, that last an average of three to four months and tend to have noticeable effects on a player’s performance at various stages.
In the seduction or “wooing” period, Dr. Mayer says, performance generally peaks. Canada’s top player, Frank Dancevic, for example, says he achieved the best result of his life the first time he brought his girlfriend to a tournament in Indianapolis two years ago. “I think I was just trying to show off—I didn’t want to look like a wuss,” says Mr. Dancevic.
As relationships progress, however, things can get complicated. Dr. Mayer says he watched one tour relationship hit the skids after the male player repackaged a watch given to him by a major tour sponsor and sent it to his girlfriend, another pro player, fibbing that he’d bought the watch in Paris—not knowing that his girlfriend had received the same watch from the same sponsor.
Coach Nick Bollettieri, who runs a famous tennis academy in Florida, says tour relationships are usually counterproductive for young players. He tries to stay out of his students’ love lives, but since Mr. Stepanek and Ms. Vaidisova began dating two years ago, he says he’s observed a change: “Stepanek seems to be doing well and Nicole seems to be struggling.” Ms. Vaidisova’s ranking fell to 67th this week from No. 7 two years ago.
Mr. Stepanek, 30, and Ms. Vaidisova, 20, both Czech, first got acquainted at Mr. Bollettieri’s academy in Bradenton, Fla., and also in Prague, and now travel to each other’s tournaments during breaks. Mr. Stepanek, who achieved the best results of his 13-year career at Wimbledon in 2006 while he was dating Ms. Hingis, says dating tennis players has been good for his career. “When you have someone next to you who understands the game, it can help in a lot of ways,” he says. “I’m doing very well.”
Write to Hannah Karp at hannah.karp@wsj.com
Tennis Gets Hot and Heavy
Increase in Co-Ed Events Sparks More Love Matches; Federer as ‘Eye Candy'
By HANNAH KARP
In the tennis world, Fernando Verdasco is on a tear. Not only has the 25-year-old Spaniard shot up to No. 8 in the world rankings, he has already dated two of the most sought-after bachelorettes on the women’s tour, Ana Ivanovic and Gisela Dulko. Recenty he has become close with Denmark’s Caroline Wozniacki, though she says they’re just friends.
Serbian tennis player Ana Ivanovic, top wearing scarf, watches former boyfriend Fernando Verdasco at a tournament last year.
Defending the title of ATP playboy, though, is Czech Radek Stepanek. He was engaged to Martina Hingis, is dating Nicole Vaidisova and is known for charming ladies with his sense of humor and a victory dance he calls “the worm,” which he debuted at a player party in the Austrian Alps several years ago after a big win and a little too much Schnapps.
“Everyone was very impressed,” recalls Mr. Stepanek, adding that he hopes his popularity with beautiful women, a subject of much speculation on tennis forums, is “because of who I am as a person.”
Wimbledon kicked off this week without Rafael Nadal, the world’s No. 1 player, but there’s still plenty of heated competition behind the scenes as players battle to win mates as well as matches. With the advent of text-messaging and social networking, a bevy of new co-ed tournaments, parties and training centers and a growing disparity between the salaries of players and their hangers-on, the lives of men’s and women’s tennis players are more intertwined than ever. Adding to the excitement, there are 10-times more female players on the tour than there were 30 years ago and many of them are now being marketed for their good looks as much as their skill.
The bump in romance—and the possibility of romance affecting play—has put British bookmakers on guard. “If we heard that Roger or Andy were having relationship problems, we would factor it in,” says Rupert Adams of the London-based bookmaker William Hill.
Among this summer’s love matches: Igor Andreev, who beat Vincent Spadea this week, is inseparable from Maria Kirilenko. Dominika Cibulkova, the 20-year-old Slovakian who defeated Urszula Radwanska, recently split from her second ATP beau, Austria’s Jurgen Melzer. (Her first, France’s Gael Monfils, was charming at dinner parties but wasn’t “a relationship guy,” says Ms. Cibulkova’s coach, Vladimir Platenik.)
Newlyweds Roger Federer and Mirka Vavrinec
Much to the dismay of many female players, Mr. Federer married one of their own in April, former pro Mirka Vavrinec, and is officially off the market. “He was great eye candy,” says France’s Marion Bartoli, who took his picture off her wall after she heard the news.
Love on the tour is hardly new, of course, and Wimbledon has always been the one tournament where players can field more nosy questions about their personal lives, thanks to Britain’s tabloid circus, than they do about tennis. In 1974, Chris Evert was engaged to Jimmy Connors when they both won singles titles at Wimbledon, and the couple was dubbed “the Love Match,” though they later broke off the engagement. Andre Agassi married Steffi Graf in 2001, though Ms. Graf retired after Wimbledon in 1999, soon after they started dating.
Anna Kournikova, who made her much-hyped Wimbledon debut 12 years ago at the age of 16, says the tour social life was relatively boring compared to nowadays—there were far fewer player parties and her mother didn’t let her stay late at the ones she went to.
View Full Image
Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf
Thirty years ago, just catching a glimpse of players of the opposite sex at the four Grand Slams each year was a thrill. Leslie Allen, a former WTA player who joined the tour in 1977, recalls an early WTA ritual: ranking the male tennis players based on their looks. “We’d choose a captain and a co-captain—we had a whole ranking system,” says Ms. Allen, now a coach at Riverdale Country School in New York.
In recent years, growing prize money, the growing system of specialized junior tennis academies and a new alignment of the men’s and women’s tours have changed things. Today, the ATP World Tour and WTA Tour share 16 combined events a year, up from seven 20 years ago. Each one has its own player kickoff party, regular co-ed marketing events and social perks that include concert tickets and movie passes.
Meanwhile, insiders say the extra cash sloshing around on the tour allows players to visit their significant others on the tour more frequently between tournaments—and has also made players more wary of groupies or outsiders who may only be interested in their money.
Female tennis players ranked in the top 20 earn roughly double what they did 15 years ago, with the top-ranked woman, Serena Williams, grossing a total of about $3.8 million last year, compared to Ms. Graf’s $1.5 million in 1994. Men’s earnings have also increased: Mr. Nadal earned $4.25 million in 2008, compared to Andre Agassi’s $2 million in 1995.
All athletes wrestle with the distractions of romance in their personal lives, but tennis is one of the few professional sports where players must face love interests and old flames on almost a monthly basis on the courts and in player hotels. Dr. John Mayer, a Chicago-based sports psychologist and president of the International Sports Professionals Association who has worked with two dozen professionals on tour, likens tennis to high school or Hollywood.
View Full Image
Jimmy Connors and Chris Evert
“It’s kind of an incestuous world,” says Dr. Mayer. When it comes to romance, he says, even the most accomplished male players tend to behave like “neanderthals” and female players like “giggly Jonas Brothers fans.” This often results in “very adolescent” relationships, he says, that last an average of three to four months and tend to have noticeable effects on a player’s performance at various stages.
In the seduction or “wooing” period, Dr. Mayer says, performance generally peaks. Canada’s top player, Frank Dancevic, for example, says he achieved the best result of his life the first time he brought his girlfriend to a tournament in Indianapolis two years ago. “I think I was just trying to show off—I didn’t want to look like a wuss,” says Mr. Dancevic.
As relationships progress, however, things can get complicated. Dr. Mayer says he watched one tour relationship hit the skids after the male player repackaged a watch given to him by a major tour sponsor and sent it to his girlfriend, another pro player, fibbing that he’d bought the watch in Paris—not knowing that his girlfriend had received the same watch from the same sponsor.
Coach Nick Bollettieri, who runs a famous tennis academy in Florida, says tour relationships are usually counterproductive for young players. He tries to stay out of his students’ love lives, but since Mr. Stepanek and Ms. Vaidisova began dating two years ago, he says he’s observed a change: “Stepanek seems to be doing well and Nicole seems to be struggling.” Ms. Vaidisova’s ranking fell to 67th this week from No. 7 two years ago.
Mr. Stepanek, 30, and Ms. Vaidisova, 20, both Czech, first got acquainted at Mr. Bollettieri’s academy in Bradenton, Fla., and also in Prague, and now travel to each other’s tournaments during breaks. Mr. Stepanek, who achieved the best results of his 13-year career at Wimbledon in 2006 while he was dating Ms. Hingis, says dating tennis players has been good for his career. “When you have someone next to you who understands the game, it can help in a lot of ways,” he says. “I’m doing very well.”
Write to Hannah Karp at hannah.karp@wsj.com
