The turbulent parent-child relationship in tennis: Hingis, Agassi, the Williamses …

Throughout the history of tennis, many great stars have been the products (or victims) of the iron discipline and training to which they were subjected by their own parents, a circumstance that on multiple occasions has ended in a bad father-child relationship for life. We review some of those cases below.

Andre Agassi

The American recently lost his father, Mike Agassi, an Iranian ex-boxer who already predicted a bright future for his son at a young age: “I was seven when I predicted that I would be number 1 in tennis.” And he was right, though not without sacrificing his son's childhood. He built 'the Dragon', a machine that threw his own son around 2,500 tennis balls a day To train. All this caused Andre's unhappiness, who even, as he confessed on several occasions, came to hate tennis. In his autobiography, Open, he revealed that his father even gave him amphetamines to improve his performance.

Williams sisters

Richard Williams is another of the great examples of a father who sees a gold mine with his children. So much so that when he saw the amounts that tennis moved in prizes (something that today is still much greater) he decided to have two more daughters to make them professional tennis players and benefit from their economic successes. Richard learned the fundamentals of tennis on his own and was thus able to coach his daughters, Venus and Serena, himself. from very small. The result? Both were number 1 (seven GS for Venus) and specifically Serena has been the most awarded tennis player in history, only surpassed in Grand Slam titles by Margaret Court (24 by 23).

Martina Hingis

Giving his daughter the first name of the great Martina Navratilova was a declaration of intent on the part of Melanie Molitor, mother of Martina Hingis. Both she and Martina's father were unsuccessful tennis players, so from early on they turned all their energies into their daughter's sporting future. Especially Melanie, who She even separated from her husband so that the Czechoslovak communist regime would not be a brake on her daughter, and she fled with Martina to Switzerland. And until the age of 20, the moment of the professional break between the two, Martina always had her mother attached as a physical trainer and trainer. He was his shadow in every trip, in every tournament … “He moved only for me, he poured everything he knew into me. He tried to give us a better life,” explained Hingis during his career.

Present

How many times have unfortunate episodes been seen in those Sunday games where parents even come to blows? Something similar happens with the father of Italian tennis player Camila Giorgi, representative of that figure of father who with little or no knowledge about the sport that his son / daughter practices, allows himself the luxury of launching any type of assessment and demand. Sergio Giorgi, A veteran of the Maldives War and known on the circuit for his flamboyant behavior, he starred in one of those moments at the Masters 1000 in Rome this year. Camila's father and coach, during his daughter's game against the Spanish Sara Sorribes, came to threatening and intimidating the chair judge from the stands for decisions with which he did not agree. “Is it possible for someone to come? Giorgi's father is very angry and I would like to have someone here.” This was the referee's request for help to the security of the tournament, since she feared for an altercation that, fortunately, did not take place. On the men's circuit, Stefanos Tsitsipas is also demanded and trained by his father Apostolos, but at least in these early years of the Greek's career, there is no evidence that the relationship between the two is stormy. Tennis and its contrasts …