Footballers are a aggressive bunch. The need to win is never ever consigned to the pitch.
So when Manchester United strikers Diego Forlan and Ruud van Nistelrooy confronted one another on a tennis court docket at Nike’s HQ in Portland throughout a 2003 pre-season tour, there was rigidity.
Sir Alex Ferguson and their United team-mates have been watching. Fergie had apparently put cash on Forlan profitable the pre-training tie-break tussle.
“Everybody needed to see who was going to win. I had all of the stress,” remembers 45-year-old Forlan, who’s gearing up for an expert tennis debut in his native Uruguay subsequent month.
“Ruud performed quite a bit – not as a lot as I performed, however nonetheless he knew the way to play.”
After just a few serving jitters, Forlan beat Van Nistelrooy “ultimately”.
What the now-interim United supervisor didn’t know – the wily Ferguson had sometimes not missed a beat – was Forlan had fairly the pedigree.
After retiring in 2019, external, Forlan had extra time for tennis. Specializing in the health and social advantages, he performed with buddies within the Montevideo membership league.
His aggressive spirit was sparked and, in 2023, the left-hander made his ITF Masters Tour debut. Now he’s ranked 113th on the earth within the over-45s class.
A better reward got here when he was given a wildcard into the Uruguay Open doubles on the ATP Challenger Tour – the tier beneath the place Novak Djokovic et al compete.
“If you happen to requested me once I was enjoying soccer if I used to be going to play on the ATP Tour, I’d not have imagined it,” stated Forlan, who counts Boris Becker, Ivan Lendl and Goran Ivanisevic amongst his idols.
“I did not know if I used to be going to play tennis though it was a sport I actually favored.”