Until recently, Romania was mostly known in the world for being the birthplace of Bram Stoker’s immortal vampire archetype, Count Dracula. And perhaps Nadia Comaneci, the first gymnast in the world to achieve a perfect 10 at the Olympic Games. Recently, though, another name has made the country well-known, especially among tennis fans: Simona Halep, the current world No. 1 on the WTA Tour. But she is not the first tennis player to reach world fame coming from Romania.
The name “Ilie Nastase” probably sounds familiar to those following tennis news closely. Last year, he was banned from the French Open after making a racist comment about Serena Williams’ unborn baby. More recently, Nastase was arrested twice in the same day for driving while drunk – this is no way to maintain the atmosphere of his former glory.
Ilie Nastase was born in Bucharest, Romania, in 1946. He started playing tennis at the age of 20 and went professional in 1969. He represented Romania in the David Cup several times, finishing as runner-up together with his good friend and fellow player Ion Tiriac. He won his first singles tournament at Cannes in 1967 and went on to defeat two of the top players at the time, Tony Roche and Stan Smith, in 1969, in Stockholm. Two years later, he went on to win his first Masters Grand Prix title and became the World #2 the next year, after winning the US Open which featured all the best players at the time. In 1973, he was in his best form, winning 17 tournaments including the French Open, the doubles in Wimbledon, and his third Masters title. During that year, he became the undisputed World #1. He kept his position between August 1973 and June 1974. He was the first male player to win a French Open without dropping a set – his performance was repeated by Bjorn Borg and Rafael Nadal in the coming years.
Ilie Nastase was considered one of the most gifted players of his time. He won the Tennis Masters Cup five times, he is one of the five tennis players to have won more than 100 pro titles, and was the first professional athlete to sign an endorsement contract with Adidas. He was not only a great player but also a great entertainer, amusing the viewers either by his antics or his facial expressions. He was known to do something bizarre even during the crucial phases of his matches. His weird but funny behaviour earned him the nickname “Bucharest Buffoon”. He was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1991, was made a knight of the French “Legion d’honneur”, recognizing his “impressive sporting career and sense of spectacle”, and received the highest civil award of his native country, the Star of Romania, in 2016, to celebrate his 70th birthday.
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