Games of Love- A Valentines day special

There was a line scribbled in one of our hostel walls. It said:
“ There is a girl behind the failure of every boy.
There is a woman behind the success of every man ".
I don’t know the authenticity of the first statement, but the second one definitely holds. My commiserations to the heartbroken guy who has pencilled in his thoughts to make it public. The festive season of love has arrived. Sports also has not been far behind in concocting romance between players. Many sporting greats have seen affairs which have been page-3 news and have kept their fans at the edge of their seats.
If we take a look into the pages of history we find so many glorious examples that have made sports stars famous than many cine- stars. One of the very first names that come to mind is the marriage between Baseball's greatest ever player, Joe di Maggio and arguably Hollywood's most famous pin-up-girl, Marilyn Monroe. But sadly, the affair was shortlived
as Monroe literally went ahead on a marrying spree before committing suicide. Perhaps one of the most beautiful athletes of all time, Tennis legend Chris Evert has had a truly "colourful and romantic” sporting career. No one can ever forget the 1974 Wimbledon Champions’ ball where Evert and Jimmy Connors provided the photographers a dream picture of love and expression. It was the happiest time of my life,” Evert said. Beep! Double-fault! They split a few months later, shortly before their planned wedding. Evert later married British tennis player John Lloyd but that also proved short-lived. All throughout her life, this great tennis player has been a fighter. Later on, golfing legend Greg Norman fell in love with her and they got married, both well within their fifties.
Love seriously has no rules. It is evergreen. Tennis has also given us perhaps the greatest sporting couple of all time. Well you don’t need to be a Bud Collins to guess who I am referring to. They won the 1992 Wimbledon, but nothing happened at the Champions’ Ball that year. But it did, 7 years later, when they won the French Open. Steffi Graf and Andre Agassi have taken their superstar status to another level and have given their fans a reason to rejoice when they tied the knot. It was a wonderful scene to watch Steffi with their two kids at Andre's matches in the players’ box during his later years, playing the role of a mother with equal grace and dexterity in the same way she used to wield the tennis racquet.
There have been some other interesting and great stories about sportspersons. The Swiss Miss, Martina Hingis has been known as the “Black Widow” because either her lovers get hurt or they vanish from the scene. The disgraced US Sprinter Marion Jones and her husband shot putter C J Hunter were nicknamed " Beauty and the Beast" in the 2000 Olympic Games. The Sydney Olympics also proved Miroslava Vavrinek's undoing as far as her tennis career is concerned. She left tennis but found her man with whom she is always seen nowadays- Roger Federer. The great US athlete Joyner-Kersee was coached to track glory by her husband, winning more athletics medals than any other American woman. Love birds
Emil and Zana Zatopek are the only husband wife pair to have won gold medals at the Olympics. The Olympics have been the setting for another legendary pairing. The 1992 Badminton gold in both the men’s and women’s went to Indonesians Alan Budikusuma and Susy Susanti who later went on to tie the knot. The 1968 Olympic decathlon champion Bill Toomey
married Olympic gold-medal winning British athlete Mary Rand in 1969 which lasted for 22 years.
India has also not lagged behind .The captains of the Indian Table Tennis teams, Kamlesh Mehta and Monalisa Baruah fell for each other which led to Miss Baruah become Mrs Monalisa Baruah Mehta. Anju Mahendru was the first Bollywood star to be romantically linked with
an international star. She had a whirlwind love affair with arguably the greatest cricketer of all time, Sir Garfield Sobers.Neena Gupta also had an affair with Vivian Richards with whom she also has a child. The story does not end here. It would go on and on. The very existence of a man is a woman, once said Agassi in one of his interviews. He was correct and so is my friend who had written those lines in my hostel. Love is the essence that binds two individuals. Sport is no different. It just acts as a medium to unite two souls