Agassi and Graf are the most famous and successful married couple in tennis history, with a combined 30 Grand Slam singles titles. They married in 2001 and have two children now in their 20s. (Photo: Getty Images)

Agassi and Graf are the most famous and successful married couple in tennis history, with a combined 30 Grand Slam singles titles. They married in 2001 and have two children now in their 20s. (Photo: Getty Images)

Love in tennis is a variation of winning a break point. In director Luca Guadagnino's love triangle film, Challengers, released last year, tennis becomes the backdrop and catalyst for three main characters to explore complex and intense emotions: love, rivalry, and hatred intertwine with burning ambitions and unsettled scores. They love each other, hurt each other, hold on, and then let go. That's tennis, with its harsh beauty.

Italian novelist Giorgio Bassani once said that "love is a crueler sport than tennis." And as Andre Agassi wrote, "every match is a life in miniature." So, when Russian tennis player Anna Kalinskaya revealed that "Holger Rune texted me 10 times… maybe he's too arrogant or just desperate," it was further proof that in love and on the court, anything can happen: from gentle caresses to harsh taunts.

Tennis is a sport of loneliness, queuing up for the tie-break. Just hearing the phrase "Fifteen Love" (also the title of a 2023 British TV series set in the world of tennis) is enough to make the heart skip a beat like a love-struck teenager. That loneliness, between tournaments, between real life and the world of the court, needs to be filled. It's no wonder tennis players often date each other, forming a "tennis tribe" passed down through generations.

The blossoming romance between Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf has all the makings of a movie. Agassi fell for Graf after accidentally switching channels and seeing her in a TV interview. In his famous autobiography, Open, he wrote: "In that moment, I thought I saw a halo above her head." Those lines alone are enough to make one choke up with happiness. But at the time, Graf had a boyfriend. And like a knight of old, Agassi punished himself by "accepting" the greatest pain: marrying someone else, the beautiful actress Brooke Shields. It seems he didn't lose out either! But in the end, love won. After divorcing Shields, Agassi started dating Graf in 1999, before marrying her in 2001 and living happily ever after.

Not only Agassi and Graf have experienced breakups and reunions, but also couples like Stefanos Tsitsipas and Paula Badosa, or Matteo Berrettini and Ajla Tomljanovic, who was Nick Kyrgios’s former girlfriend. Each relationship, after all, is like a match, where each player steps onto the court with their own signature shots.

Another couple who also fell in love and found success together are Roger Federer and Mirka Vavrinec. Their love story began in 2000 when they both represented the Swiss tennis team at the Sydney Olympics. Vavrinec was a professional player at the time, while Federer was just starting his professional career. They have been together ever since, with Vavrinec retiring in 2002 after an injury to focus on being a solid support for Federer as his agent and manager, helping him focus entirely on competing. In 2009, they married after nearly a decade together and now have four children.

Roger Federer and his future wife Mirka Vavrinec. (Photo: Getty Images)

Roger Federer and his future wife Mirka Vavrinec. (Photo: Getty Images)

In Italy, the most famous and enduring love story belongs to Fabio Fognini and Flavia Pennetta, two seemingly distant galaxies brought together by fate. They have three children, all with names starting with the letter F: Federico, Farah, and Flaminia.

On social media, the modern-day stage for announcing relationships, Elina Svitolina and Gael Monfils once opened a joint Instagram account with a name combining the first letters of both their names (g.e.m.s.life), as a way to affirm their relationship and mark their love "brand."

But the love of tennis players is not all sweet kisses. The 1970s witnessed the romance between Jimmy Connors and Chris Evert. They met very young—she was 17, he was 19—in the dining room of Queen’s Club, at a tournament parallel to Wimbledon. They exchanged glances, like two players looking at each other before a serve, trying to anticipate each other's intentions. Connors even had to ask Evert's strict mother, Colette, for permission to date. When they both won Wimbledon in 1974, the British tabloids called them the "Lovebird Double," while in America, they were dubbed the "Golden Couple."

They had planned to marry, everything was ready, but it ultimately didn't happen. Evert remained tight-lipped about the reason. Connors, true to his blunt style, revealed years later that Evert was pregnant but wasn't sure he was the father, and she decided to have an abortion to protect her career. Evert expressed deep disappointment at Connors making their private pain public.

Jimmy Connors and Chris Evert during their relationship. (Photo: Getty Images)

Jimmy Connors and Chris Evert during their relationship. (Photo: Getty Images)

Two decades ago, another couple who almost got married were Kim Clijsters and Lleyton Hewitt: four years of passionate love, but then they went their separate ways.

Building love in tennis is not easy. Players are constantly traveling the world, from tournament to tournament. Dominic Thiem and Kristina Mladenovic broke up because "they didn't have time for each other." Maria Sharapova and Grigor Dimitrov were once the most glamorous couple in tennis a decade ago. They were together for three years, then each went their own way.

In another famous tennis movie, though not just about tennis, Woody Allen's Match Point, the main character is a young and attractive tennis coach who believes that luck is the greatest value to pursue in life. But when he falls for a captivating woman, played by Scarlett Johansson, his life begins to crumble. Like players who love themselves too much, there are matches that slip out of reach, relationships distanced by lies, secrets, ambition, and need.

The final image of the film—the tennis ball bouncing on the net and hanging in the air—encapsulates the meaning of everything: the role of luck in determining human destiny, whether it's a tennis match or a love affair. And what if that night, instead of meeting the love of his life through the TV screen, Agassi, as he himself admitted, having abused many drugs, had fallen asleep on the sofa?

Compiled by Hoang Thong