During his childhood in Louisiana, Richard says, he was “too busy running from the Klan” to play tennis, but he has decided that Venus and Serena will excel at a sport which has traditionally been as white as a Wimbledon uniform.īy night, he works as a security guard at a mall, a job which allows him to sit and study coaching manuals into the small hours. At the start of “King Richard”, around 1990, he shares a small bungalow in Compton, Los Angeles, with his wife Oracene “Brandy” Price (Aunjanue Ellis), his three step-daughters, and the couple’s two biological daughters, Venus (Saniyya Sidney) and Serena (Demi Singleton). Twenty years on from playing a champion himself in “Ali”, Will Smith stars as the middle-aged Richard Williams. Yet it is their father who has been granted a biopic while they are still waiting for theirs. And that we can take a moment to appreciate those of us who already have it.V ENUS AND SERENA WILLIAMS may be two of the greatest sportspeople ever. When things get back to normal, or whatever normal becomes, I hope we can all find some of that gift within ourselves. It’s a bunch of multiple Grand Slam winners and Mansour Bahrami because Mansour Bahrami has a greater gift than any of them: he can bring joy to the people who watch him. He still plays in legends tournaments with his buddies from the old days. For Mansour Bahrami, playing tennis itself is a beautiful thing. The talent was so obvious, but also the fact that for some people winning isn’t everything and it doesn’t need to be. But instead he became a different kind of star.īahrami was a journeyman who became beloved for the exuberance he showed on the court. Maybe if he had started from a younger age, and developed his talents alongside the kids he was working for as a ballboy, he would have become a superstar like his friends Yannick Noah, John McEnroe, and Bjorn Borg. It’s hard to know what would have happened had Bahrami not lost some of his career to the revolution, and to the years he spent wandering France. He bounced all over the court with a smile on his face. There was never anything boring about Bahrami the man, with his big bushy mustache and expressive eyes. There was never anything boring about his tennis. He generally couldn’t bear the thought of winning in straight sets and depriving fans of high stakes tennis, so Bahrami frequently let lesser opponents come back and make things close - only to play it too close and find himself losing the match. But he became a beloved star because of the way he played: exuberantly, outrageously, and often hilariously. Bahrami never won a men’s singles tournament on the pro tour. It was about drawing others into the sport so that they could love it as he loved it. This was the biggest victory of his career because it allowed him to have one: For Bahrami, it was never about being the greatest, but about the ability to play and perform in the sport he loved. Bahrami lost the following match, but his performance was enough to solidify his career in pro tennis, and his legal status in France. And in the first round at Roland Garros, Bahrami steamrolled an established French star named Jean-Louis Haillet. Then he proceeded to win match after match after match until, six matches later, he found himself qualified for the main draw. Instead, he fluked into the play-in bracket for the 1981 French Open. Doing so would have meant isolating himself from his family - possibly forever. He wandered the streets, slept under bridges, gave part-time tennis lessons, and refused to apply for the refugee status that would have given him permanent legal residency in France. In 20 minutes, I lost all my money."īahrami was essentially homeless. Then I thought, if I win at the casinos I can get maybe $8,000 or $9,000 and stay three, four months. “I figured I could live on that maybe 10 days or so. Then he went off to France, where he immediately blew all his savings : about $2,000, in a casino. Bahrami switched to making a living playing Backgammon. Then came the Iranian Revolution, and all of a sudden tennis - this western sport, this symbol of colonization - was banned. Things were looking up: it was already a miraculous story. By the time he turned 20, Bahrami was a professional. A few years later, he was on the Davis Cup team. Despite having no formal training, he was accepted. When he was 13, the country needed youth players to develop, and Bahrami tried out for the national program.
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