Who Are You Calling Nasty?; Tennis Star Ilie Nastase Was Once No 1 Player in the World, but He Is Just As Famous for His On-Court Outbursts. For Him It Is Just Who He Was. He Tells Mark Smith How He Never Expected People to Love Him

Summary

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The name Ilie Nastase provokes two reactions, depending entirely on the sex of the person having it. In women over 35 or so, something happens to their eyes; suddenly they are in the past, watching the dark Romanian tennis star flinging himself around the court (that hair! those legs!), and flirting with the crowd (and them, of course). In men, the reaction is different, but just as passionate. For them, it's more of a man-worship thing. Nastase was a rule smasher, a convention breaker, a cursing, laughing, joking ball of talent who always played fast and furious, but mainly furious. He was a hero.

Of course, the reaction of the tennis establishment - particularly at Wimbledon - was different again. To the men who ran the game in the 1970s, Nastase spelled T.R.O.U.B.L.E. He was a problem, a nuisance, Nastase the Nasty. He threw things - rackets, tantrums, caution to the wind - and that has never really gone down well in SW1.

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Extract

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Who Are You Calling Nasty?; Tennis Star Ilie Nastase Was Once No 1 Player in the World, but He Is Just As Famous for His On-Court Outbursts. For Him It Is Just Who He Was. He Tells Mark Smith How He Never Expected People to Love Him

Nastase himself never cared about any of that. He just wanted to play the game he taught himself when he was six years old. By his twenties, he had hit his way on to the tour where he lobbed and volleyed and winked at the woman in the third row and became No1 in the world. At his absolute best, the racket became a lightning conductor and th...

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