Nastase’s not racist ...you should build a monument to him
TIRIAC DEFENDS HIS OLD DOUBLES PARTNER
ION TIRIAC uses one of his customary flourishes to describe how poverty brought him and Ilie Nastase together as young Romanians on the tennis circuit.
‘I slept more in the same bed as Nastase than any of his four wives because we didn’t have the money for two beds,’ declares his former doubles partner.
Things are different these days. Tiriac is the owner of the Mutua Madrid Open and was the first former sports professional to be named in Forbes’ list of billionaires, achieved without the benefit of a legend’s career.
Romania’s richest man has never stood by convention, and defied the tennis establishment last week by inviting his old friend Nastase to his tournament as a guest, in defiance of his interim suspension from the game.
Not only that, he allowed him to present the women’s trophy to compatriot Simona Halep, earning a rebuke from outraged WTA Tour chief Steve Simon.
Seated in his Madrid offices, Tiriac — known in his playing days as Count Dracula due to his striking appearance — explained to Sportsmail his reasons behind the provocative move.
He vigorously defended Nastase’s character, and revealed some of the background to the outbursts at last month’s Fed Cup match against Great Britain which scandalised the sport.
Nastase, it turns out, has three lawyers fighting his suspension by the International Tennis Federation. Tiriac admits he had a hand in Nastase’s appointment as Fed Cup captain, after being approached by Halep. He is also perturbed at the way Wimbledon has taken a position — Nastase will not be invited to sit in the Royal Box — before the ITF investigation has concluded.
Most forcibly of all, he denies that his old partner is a racist, despite him having been reported as making offensive comments about the colour of Serena Williams’s unborn baby.
‘Nastase, good or bad, needs a monument to him everywhere, including in England, because he is the guy who took tennis out of the country club and to the people,’ said Tiriac. ‘He is not allowed to go to Wimbledon? He made Wimbledon funny, playing with the umbrella. We once played Ken Rosewall and Fred Stolle on Centre Court and people were going mad. He was human, you could touch it.
‘Nastase is the least racist guy in this world. We did Arthur Ashe clinics for black children in South Africa, and there were times when we would have gone to prison if we had been caught.’
Tiriac offers further defence by recalling an incident in the 1997 US Open, when Venus Williams and Irina Spirlea bumped into each other at the changeover.
WILLIAMS’S father Richard caused controversy by describing the Romanian as a ‘big white turkey’.
‘I am sorry about Serena, she is a great girl,’ says Tiriac. ‘I remember after that incident Ilie said to the father of Spirlea, “The guy is a parent”. He defended Venus and her father, so how can Serena say he is a racist?’
However, Tiriac does not defend Nastase’s insults towards Anne Keothavong and Jo Konta, which led to his ejection and the match being suspended. ‘ If he said anything out of control that is wrong. But the captain has the right to ask how much time is taken between points. But how can they say he’s guilty before the judgement?’
But surely it was unwise to put the notoriously volatile Nastase in the Fed Cup job initially? One reason, it transpires, was to alleviate friction in the Romanian team among some of the players.
‘Simona Halep asked me, “May I ask Nastase to be a captain because he has the name and the girls like him”. The guy knows every corner of the sport.’
Tiriac knows that supporting Nastase will not be universally well received, but he is unrepentant about inviting him to Madrid.
‘I have known him since he was seven years old, he is not a bad person. Why should he not be allowed here? Are we living in the era of Ceausescu or Hitler?’
Tiriac, 78, has had an extraordinary life. Born into modest circumstances in Transylvania, he played ice hockey for Romania in the 1964 Olympics and then focused on tennis.
However, he made most of his fortune by setting up businesses after communism’s collapse. Tennis, however, is still his chief passion, and he is looking to build a 10,000-seat stadium at Madrid’s Caja Magica.
He is also concerned about general trends emerging in the sport. ‘We need to make it more attractive for the television,’ he said. ‘I watched Maria Sharapova play Eugenie Bouchard, they were taking 50 seconds between points. We have to do something about it.’
While an innovator, he has a sneaking admiration for Wimbledon’s traditions. ‘I’ve always said clay is for tennis, cement is for cars to drive on and grass is for cows. But congratulations to Wimbledon for keeping it.’