Most Controversial Tennis Player 'Ran Over His Trainer' After Becoming World No.1
A former men's tennis world number one was involved in a series of bizarre moments during his career.
Marcelo Rios, from Santiago, Chile, became the number one-ranked player on the ATP Tour after winning the 1998 Miami Open Championships.
Aged just 22, Rios became the first South American to top the rankings, having won eight career titles by that point.
He ended 1998 by winning two more ATP Masters events and lifted the season-ending Grand Slam Cup.
Advert
The following year, Rios won the German Open and reached the final of the Monte-Carlo Masters, but injuries forced him to miss the Australian Open and Wimbledon.
Injury problems caused his form to decline over the coming years, though he showed glimpses of his old level by reaching the semi-final of the Australian Open in 2002.
Rios retired from professional tennis aged just 28 in 2004, having been inactive for a year.
That meant he holds the unwanted record as being the only ATP world number one to never win a Grand Slam trophy.
During his career, the Chilean was embroiled in a series of incidents that landed him in hot water.
In 2001, he was fined $10,000 by ATP Tour officials after being involved in an altercation at an official players reception in Rome.
Rios was accused of resisting arrest and assaulting two police officers after an alleged altercation between himself, the two officers and a taxi driver. He spent the rest of the night in a prison cell.
The following year, his lawyer confirmed that he had paid an undisclosed fine over the incident.
In 2018, he was fined $2,500 by the International Tennis Federation (ITF) after refusing interviews as the assistant to Chile's Davis Cup team.
When one journalist asked him a question, he is said to have replied: "As my friend Diego Armando [Maradona] says, all of you can s*** it, because I do not talk to journalists."
He later clarified on Twitter: "I understand that many people disagree with what I said, but it bothers me that journalists lie so much and no-one stops them."
And as per Chilean daily newspaper La Tercera, Rios inadvertently ran over the leg of his physical trainer, Manuel Astorga, while in his car.
Astorga told the outlet that it was an 'obviously unintentional' act, though the pair stopped working together shortly afterwards.
His former coach Larry Stefanki told The Telegraph's 'Tennis Podcast' in 2019: "I never had a problem with Marcelo, personally, how we got along.
"We had our little incidents early on, he kind of got my drift. Luckily Marcelo hadn't made any money or felt like he was in a position of power. So he was all ears, and we worked together for three-and-a-half years.
"People said, 'How do you deal with him?' I'm pretty straightforward. I speak my own mind. He knew where I was coming from. He knew I was a tough guy, and I wasn't going to come to his whim and do it his way. Because I knew his way wasn't going to work.
"He was born with a gift. Two guys that I've seen, that were born with a gift, were Marcelo and Johnny [McEnroe], in my 30 or 40 years in tennis.
"But Marcelo was very IQ smart, very gifted. Not disciplined. That's where I came in, with my mentality, and tried to bring those facets in his game.
"He wanted it his way, only his way, and nothing but his way. And life doesn't work like that, in my opinion."
Stefanki then revealed how their partnership ended: "He called me, he just said: 'I'm tired of hearing your shtick, and I want to go in another direction'.
"And I said, 'Dude, do you know what other direction is when you're one? There's only one direction you're going'.
"That was our last conversation. I never said another word to him after that. To this day. That was how it ended."
Topics: Tennis
Ryan Smart