Former women's professional tennis player Palm Schleffer revealed on Wednesday that she had "had an improper and destructive relationship with a coach who was 33 years older than herself," the Daily Telegraph reported yesterday. The relationship began when she was 17, and her coach, Candy, was 50 at the time.
Born in July 1962, Schlevor has won 133 titles in his career, including 21 women's singles titles, 111 women's doubles titles and one mixed doubles title. At the Grand Slam tournament, Shriver finished second in the women's singles of the US Open in 1978 at the age of 16.
Schlevor has a brilliant doubles achievement. She won a total of 21 women's doubles titles and 1 mixed doubles title at four Grand Slams, and won the gold medal in women's doubles with her partner Garrison at the 1988 Seoul Olympics. Shriver has been paired with Navratilova for many years, and the two achieved the feat of "Grand Slam of the Year" in women's doubles in 1984.
After retiring from the army in 1996, Shriver worked as a tennis commentator at ESPN, Tennis Channel, And Australia 7, and is currently a tennis commentator for ESPN and the BBC.
"Candy never sexually assaulted me, but I dare say it was a masochistic relationship." Schlevor told the British "Daily Telegraph" reporter on Wednesday.
"In short, I had an inappropriate, harmful relationship with a coach who was much older than me, which lasted more than five years from the time I was 17." Candy died in 2020 at the age of 91.
"If Candy had been more knowledgeable at the time, he might have been more experienced and more aware of the consequences of unrequited love when coaching an adolescent girl, and would have handled the relationship with caution." Obviously, he was not a hunter of bad moral character. Schlevor added.
"To this day, my feelings about Candy are still contradictory. Yes, I had a long and inappropriate affair with him, and he was unfaithful to his wife. However, there is a lot of truth in him that is honest and true. I love him and I feel like he's a mature man to trust.
This unrequited love affair brought a lot of psychological pressure to Shlever, and she felt ashamed, thinking that she was a bad girl, and she had a deep sense of guilt for it. "It wasn't until I received psychological guidance that I realized that my faults weren't as much as I thought. Now, I finally realize that the main responsibility for all this lies with Candy, not me. ”
So what prompted the soon-to-be-60-year-old woman to summon up the courage to confess this disgraceful experience to the world?
Schlevor says she now has the courage to tell her story because today's young players are in a similar situation as they were then. "I think corporal punishment and verbal abuse by coaches, which is very common throughout the sport. Now, decades later, this is still the case. ”
"My specialty is tennis, and I've witnessed dozens of these things in my 40+ years as a tennis player and commentator. Whenever I hear about a female player dating her coach, or I see a male therapist physically training a woman in the gym, I ring alarm bells inside.
"For tennis players who are reading this article, as well as other athletes, I want to emphasize that blurring the lines between individuals and professions can have a range of negative effects.
"That has to be very clear. This relationship is inappropriate, and those who cross the line will inevitably face the consequences of it. Schlevor added.
The ambiguity, love and even unrequited love between male coaches and female players is very sensitive private information, which is difficult for the outside world to know, and rarely talks about it publicly. The reason why Schlev said this must have a clear and specific direction. In other words, she did know specific people and things, but she did not name names due to various circumstances.
It is human nature to explore gossip. I searched the web and found that at least two active female players might be involved in what Schleffer told.
The first is 24-year-old Russian player Kudmetova. At the age of 13, Sergei Demekhine became her coach. Three years later, the two began dating, but deMeken's 13-year-older than Kudmetova worried her parents, especially her mother.
Kudmetova's partner, Shuwei Xie, reached the women's doubles final at Wimbledon last year, and she talked about the experience of falling in love with the coach. "When I was 16, I just liked him but didn't think much about it. It may be that my upbringing has affected me because it was unacceptable for me to be in a relationship with a 29-year-old coach at 16. Even after starting a formal date, I was still ashamed of the big age difference and the fact that he was my coach. ”
The most direct reason why Kudmetova's parents invited Demecan to be their daughter's coach is probably that the other party was a professional player. In the highly competitive men's tennis world, De Macon's career has not been a success, and his highest world ranking is 438. After retiring, Demeken coached former women's world number two, Russian player Zvonareva. In addition, De Macon has also worked as a model for the famous clothing brand Armani. Interestingly, Kudmetova's tennis clothing sponsor is Armani, and I don't know if this is related to the coach.
After 3 years in love, 19-year-old Kudmetova married 32-year-old Demecon in 2017. Although this love experience once caused trouble to Kudmetova, the two eventually achieved the right results.
Another female player who may be involved is Kvitova. Coincidentally, Kvitova and Kudmetova are currently ranked close together, with the former ranked 28th and the latter at 29th.
In June 2020, news of Kvitova's relationship with coach Giri Vanek began to circulate. At that time, Warneck was found to be living in Kvitova's apartment, and the former world Number 74 player was divorcing his wife and had two teenage sons.
After this matter was exposed, public opinion was in an uproar. The blood of the dog in the incident also lies in the fact that someone broke the news in the media that "Vanek's wife took care of Petra (Kvitova's name) after she was stabbed, and Kvitova repaid her by sleeping with her man." ”
Agent Karel Tekar explained that Kvitova simply provided a place for her coach to stay because her apartment was spacious and Vanek had a hard time finding a place to stay during the coronavirus pandemic. In the eyes of the outside world, such an explanation is undoubtedly "more and more black".
Vanek is 44 years old and 12 years older than Kvitova. Prior to coaching Kvitova, Vanek was the coach of former world number one Czech player Ka Pliskova. Starting in 2016, Vanek began coaching Kvitova. Kvitova was engaged to her country's hockey player Radek Medel in 2015, but the matter didn't work out.
During the US Open last year, Kvitova admitted to the outside world that she was in a relationship with her coach, Vanek. As of now, there is no definitive news and evidence that Warneck is divorced. (Source: Tennis House Author: Yun Cirrus Yunshu)