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Rediff.com  » Sports » Love Match: Take a look at real life mixed double partners
This article was first published 10 years ago

Love Match: Take a look at real life mixed double partners

January 02, 2014 13:06 IST

Image: Sania Mirza
Photographs: Hitesh Harisinghani/Rediff.com

Just like Hollywood stars, the personal lives of tennis players attract a lot of media attention and speculation.

Irish golfer Rory McIlroy and Dane tennis bomb Caroline Wozniacki made it official on social networking feed about their engagement. They are the hottest couple on the block at the moment!

-Golfer McIlroy rings in the New Year with Wozniacki engagement

Rediff.com gives you a glimpse of players who have dated or married people from the tennis fraternity and from other disciplines.

Sania Mirza and Shoaib Malik

The Indian tennis icon Sania Mirza tops the charts in the sub continent. Sania Mirza and Pakistan's cricket sensation Shoaib Malik married on April 12, 2010 in Hyderabad and have had their fair share of controversies.

Recently they were seen shaking a leg in the dance reality show Nach Baliye 5.

Love Match: Take a look at real life mixed double partners

Image: Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf

Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf

The couple were champions on the tennis court multiple times. It wasn't until 1999, when they both won the French Open and shared the traditional Champions' dance, that they started dating. The couple married on October 22, 2001, and, apparently, only their mothers were witnesses to the event.

They have two children together. The son, Jaden Gil, was born pre-maturely only a few days after the wedding. Jayden is named after Andre Agassi's longtime trainer, Gil Reyes.

Their daughter, Jaz Elle, was born in October of 2003. Currently, the couple's making their home in Las Vegas.

Love Match: Take a look at real life mixed double partners

Image: American tennis champions Jimmy Connors and Chris Evert
Photographs: Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Jimmy Connors-Chris Evert

They are American tennis darlings of the 1970s. Not only did the top two players fall in love, the American and tennis public fell in love with them as well. They both won Wimbledon singles titles in 1974 and danced together at the Champions' ball.

When the couple played mixed doubles in some tournaments, the crowds went wild. They were officially engaged in 1973; wedding plans were made.

Those plans were eventually cancelled, but the engagement remained.

They separated for good in 1976. Both went on to incredible tennis careers. The two remain good friends.

Later, Evert found new love in Britain's John Lloyd, Britain's No 1 player for years. The two were married in 1979.

The marriage, however, ended in 1987.

Love Match: Take a look at real life mixed double partners

Image: Swiss tennis player Roger Federer (left) and his wife Mirka
Photographs: Alexander Demianchuk/Reuters

Roger Federer and Mirka

Roger Federer and Mirka Vavrinec met, and started their relationship, at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney.

Since then the pair has been inseparable, with Federer saying the Olympics have special meaning to him because that's where he met the love of his life.

Mirka is constantly in Federer's players box and the couple have twin daughters, who were born after Roger's Wimbledon victory in 2009.

For her part, Mirka became deeply involved in Federer's career after her own ended with injury.

Love Match: Take a look at real life mixed double partners

Image: Britain's Jamie Murray (left) kisses Serbia's Jelena Jankovic
Photographs: Toby Melville/Reuters

Jamie Murray and Jelena Jankovic

The rumours of Jamie Murray and Jelena Jankovic being an item started in 2007. They arrived at the Wimbledon Champions' Dinner looking a winning couple right after their mixed doubles victory.

Speculation over their relationship started as soon as they set foot on court for the Wimbledon mixed doubles event that year.

They flirted, giggled, held hands and displayed such extraordinary on-court chemistry that some cheekier spectators were moved to shout out, 'Come on you lovebirds'.

Murray and Jankovic insisted their relationship was entirely professional.

But after the duo beat Sweden's Jonas Bjorkman and Australian Alicia Molik to win the title, Jankovic stated, 'When it was a breakpoint I was telling him if he got a good return he would get many kisses, but he kept putting it out.

'What do I have to do to pump him up a little bit to play great tennis?'

But she later confirmed that all of it were mere rumours and it affected her relationship with her boyfriend, 'a simple man from Serbia'.

Love Match: Take a look at real life mixed double partners

Image: Adam Scott with Ana Ivanovic
Photographs: Quinn Rooney/Getty Images

Ana Ivanovic and Adam Scott

Ana Ivanovic recently dumped boyfriend, Australian golf star Adam Scott, and has fallen in love with tennis again. It is understood she ended their relationship as her career went into free-fall.

Ivanovic says her break-up from her longtime love affected her game. The glamourous player says her on-court performance suffered after the break-up in the middle of 2010.

During the slump, her ranking fell outside the world top 50, and she lost in the opening round of Wimbledon.

'It's tough,' Adelaide Now quoted the 2008 French Open champion as saying.

Earlier, Ivanovic was reportedly dating Spanish tennis player Fernando Verdasco for a few months -- starting up at the US Open in 2008 and breaking up in the middle of January 2009.

Love Match: Take a look at real life mixed double partners

Image: Switzerland's tennis player Martina Hingis and Stepanek Radek
Photographs: Siggi Bucher/Reuters

Martina Hingis and Radek Stepanek

Former women's World No 1 Martina Hingis and Czech Radek Stepanek, the highest profile couple in tennis, got engaged in November 2006, when Stepanek proposed to Hingis in Prague.

Just when the world thought that Hingis was the driving-force of Stepanek's fantastic form, they broke-off their engagement in August 2007.

Love Match: Take a look at real life mixed double partners

Image: Lleyton Hewitt of Australia with Kim Clijsters
Photographs: Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images

Lleyton Hewitt and Kim Clijsters

When it comes to tennis relationships, one cannot miss Lleyton Hewitt and Kim Clijsters.

They looked adorable together and so much in love always. Tennis fans were shocked when they parted ways.

Lleyton Hewitt blamed the media frenzy of their relationship for a shock split with Kim Clijsters.

The four-year romance saw the dust settle soon as the former World No 1 Kim Clijsters called to break-off with Hewitt.

Clijsters and Hewitt met at the 2000 Australian Open as teenagers, when Kim's sister, Elke, asked her to get Hewitt's autograph. Their relationship soon blossomed.

Clijsters quickly became known as 'Aussie Kim' and endeared herself to the Australian public with her pleasant nature.

The two were engaged after a romantic boat trip around SydneyHarbour in December 2004. The relationship softened Hewitt's brash image, which was tarnished in his early tennis days by petulant behaviour.

Love Match: Take a look at real life mixed double partners

Image: The Czech Republic's Lucie Safarova speaks to Tomas Berdych
Photographs: Petr Josek/Reuters

Tomas Berdych-Lucie Safarova

He upset Federer in the quarter-finals at Wimbledon last year, but his relationship with the lovely Lucie Safarova dates all the way back to 2005.

The pair grew up together in Prostejov and were fast friends, who took it to the next level when they were old enough. You can't have a cuter nickname than the 'Czech Mates'.

They are both from the CzechRepublic and they don't try to hide their relationship at all. Their relationship appears to be helping their tennis game.

Berdych is now in the top-10 and Safarova is up to around No 30 in the world.

Fans hoped the nine year relationship would result in marriage. But Berdych had other ideas. He split with Lucie in 2011 and just was soon spotted model Ester Satorova.

Ester Satorova set the temperatures soaring on tennis courts. The stunner keeps the cameras busy during her boyfriend Tomas Berdych's matches these days.

Love Match: Take a look at real life mixed double partners

Image: Greg Norman of Australia kisses Chris Evert
Photographs: Stuart Franklin/Getty Images

Greg Norman-Chris Evert

Greg Norman and tennis legend Chris Evert, who spectacularly broke up their respective long-time families in order to get hitched, secretly divorced on December 8, 2010 in Key West.

They were six months short of their second anniversary!

It was the former World No 1 female tennis player's third attempt at holy matrimony, and the golfer's second.

Taking advantage of the attention paid by the press to the firestorm surrounding the Tiger Woods accident and sex scandal, the two worked out a quickie settlement behind closed doors.