Footballers are a competitive bunch. The desire to win rarely appears on the field.
So when Manchester United strikers Diego Forlan and Ruud van Nistelrooy faced each other on the tennis courts at Nike’s Portland headquarters during a pre-season tour in 2003, there was tension.
Sir Alex Ferguson and his United team-mates are watching. Fergie apparently spent money so that Forlan won the tie-break battle before training.
“Everyone wanted to see who would win. I felt all the pressure,” recalled Forlan, 45, who is preparing to make his professional tennis debut in his native Uruguay next month.
“Ruud plays a lot – not as much as me, but he still knows how to play.”
After some nervousness, Forlan beat Van Nistelrooy “in the end”.
What United’s caretaker manager didn’t know – the canny Ferguson usually never misses a beat – was that Forlan had quite a pedigree.
After retired in 2019, outsideForlan has more time to play tennis. Focusing on fitness and social benefits, he plays with his friends in the Montevideo club league.
His competitive spirit was fired up and, in 2023, the left-hander made his debut on the ITF Masters Tour. Now he is ranked 113th in the world in the age category over 45 years.
A bigger reward came when he got a wildcard into the Uruguay Open doubles event on the ATP Challenger Tour – the level below where Novak Djokovic et al compete.
“If you had asked me when I was playing football whether I would play on the ATP Tour, I would not have imagined it,” said Forlan, who counts Boris Becker, Ivan Lendl and Goran Ivanisevic among his idols.
“I don’t know if I would play tennis even though it is a sport that I really like.”
