1972 was a turning point in Ilie Nastase's career: he won his first US Open, while also reaching both Wimbledon and Davis Cup finals. Moving back and forth in time and featuring amazing archive footage and exclusive interviews with top athletes, the documentary explores Nastase's highs and lows, the controversies that surrounded him and the enduring impact he has had on the world of tennis. Lovable, charming and generous, yet temperamental, arrogant and obscene, Mr. Nice'n'Nasty disrupted the old-fashioned etiquette of the sport in the 70s thus becoming its first rebel rock star.
Under pressure to continue a winning tradition in American tennis, Mardy Fish faced mental health challenges that changed his life on and off the court.
A profile documentary about selfless Jacksonville public courts manager and tennis coach Harrell Thomas, who loves his job and works hard to make a difference in his community.
Del Potro, el último match point
Wonderful glimpse of the Wimbledon tennis championship at its former home on Worple Road, including some of the era’s top male and female players.
"Boris Becker - The Player" is a rousing and emotional portrait of one of the greatest German sports heroes ever! It shows us the person Boris Becker up close: We experience him as a privateer, trainer, businessman and as a loving husband and father.
In this exclusive first person account, Johnnie Ashe will relay this previously unknown chapter of his brother Arthur's legacy. Johnnie, five years Arthur's junior, returned from his first tour in Vietnam with the Marines. At the time, Arthur Ashe was a lieutenant in the Army working at West Point in data processing while fast becoming a rising star in the tennis world. When Johnnie was sent home however, Arthur suddenly became in danger of being sent to Vietnam. Johnnie volunteered to be sent back to the war in his brother's place so that Arthur could continue his budding tennis career. Johnnie would return home, and Arthur would go on to win the inaugural 1968 U.S. Open en route to a Hall of Fame career in tennis, made possible by his brother's selflessness.
The first time Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova stepped onto a tennis court together, the world scarcely noticed. Only a few hundred spectators saw the pert 18-year-old beat the scrappy 16-year-old Czech in 1973. “I remember that she was fat,” Evert recalled. “She was very emotional on the court, whining if she didn't feel she was playing well. But I remember thinking, if she loses weight, we’re all in trouble.” Said Navratilova, “My goal was for her to remember my name.” Eighty matches later – amid the extraordinary growth of women’s tennis – Evert not only remembered, but became a tried and true friend and confidante, remarkable considering the two appeared to be polar opposites in upbringing, life styles and personal relationships. Through a series of personal conversations, this documentary will tell the story of one of the greatest one-on-one sports rivalries and capture these two extraordinary athletes’ views on tennis and an ever-changing world.
As the BBC celebrates 90 years of covering Wimbledon, Sue Barker travels the globe to meet some of the legends who have graced the famous grass courts. Tennis royalty including Andy Murray, Roger Federer, Rod Laver, Chris Evert, Billie Jean King, Pete Sampras, Bjorn Borg, Virginia Wade, Martina Navratilova, Boris Becker and John McEnroe share memories and reflect on their own experiences at the iconic tennis tournament. These are their stories as never told before, emotional and self-deprecating, revealing how their lives and careers were changed by the Championships. For Sue herself, Wimbledon has been a big part of her life for nearly 50 years as a fan, player and broadcaster. She also meets the Duke of Kent, who is president of the All England Lawn Tennis Club, and the Duchess of Cambridge, who this year takes on a new role as patron.
We know about the swing. We know about the swagger. But what most Americans don't know about Venus Williams is how she changed the course of her sport. In a stunning case that captured the European public beginning in 2005, Williams challenged the long-held practice of paying women tennis players less than their male counterparts at Wimbledon. With a deep sense of obligation to the legacy of Billie Jean King, Williams lobbied British Parliament, UNESCO and Fleet Street for financial parity. And it was her poignant op-ed piece in The London Times that convinced many people that the Wimbledon tournament organizers were "on the wrong side of history." Roland Garros and Wimbledon finally relented in 2007. That year at Wimbledon, Venus became the first women's champion to earn as much as the men's singles winner (Roger Federer). VENUS VS. chronicles Williams' fight for pay equality.
The film intertwines Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal's lives with their famed 2008 Wimbledon championship - an epic match so close and so reflective of their competitive balance that, in the end, the true winner was the sport itself.
Author Jay Caspian Kang’s astute, incisive directorial debut tells the story of Asian American tennis prodigy Michael Chang, the youngest player to win a men’s Grand Slam tournament.
Enjoy the highlights and most memorable moments from Wimbledon 2005 with this compilation of clips that celebrates the 119th year of the prestigious tennis tournament. Centre Court highlights capture Roger Federer's triumph over Andy Roddick and Venus Williams's comeback from match point in the third set to defeat 2004 champion Maria Sharapova in a thrilling game. The program also includes doubles, semi-finals and quarter-finals highlights.
An immersive film essay on tennis legend John McEnroe at the height of his career as the world champion, documenting his strive for perfection, frustrations, and the hardest loss of his career at the 1984 Roland-Garros French Open.
"Renee" tells the story of Renee Richards' battle to enter the 1977 U.S. Open as the first transgender tennis player. Simultaneously, it follows her today as she struggles to cope with a life of contradictions and personal conflict. Through interviews with tennis legends, family, friends and experts from the transgender field, a story of perseverance, breakthrough and hardship unfolds.
An insider's look on the making of Penn's tennis balls, from their creation in a factory to the final stages of quality control.
Told in his own words using interviews spanning from the 1980s through now, father and tennis coach Richard Williams retraces his family's journey from the courts in Compton to the grass at Wimbledon, defying every custom of the lily-white tennis establishment and fighting back against a system of oppression to raise two of the greatest champions in history - Venus and Serena Williams.
For more than forty years, Argentinean sportsman Guillermo Vilas, a tennis legend, has tirelessly demanded that the official rankings (1973-78) be revised in order to finally be recognized as the best player in the world. Eduardo Puppo, a sports journalist, making Vilas' demand his own, fought for more than ten years against a powerful sports corporation to prove that Vilas was indeed unfairly displaced from the top of world tennis.
Althea Gibson’s life and achievements transcend sports. A truant from the rough streets of Harlem, Althea emerged as a most unlikely queen of the highly segregated tennis world in the 1950s. Her roots as a sharecropper’s daughter, her family’s migration north to Harlem in the 1930s, mentoring from Sugar Ray Robinson, David Dinkins and others, and fame that thrust her unwillingly into the glare of the early Civil Rights movement, all bring her story into a much broader realm of the American story.
Exploring the interweaving lives and narrative of female tennis royalty as told through the words of the players themselves, Unraveling Athena provides an extraordinary insight into the mind of the professional athlete and the ultimate exploration of what it takes to make a champion.