Even at the age of 61, Mansour Bahrami is still active in show matches around the globe. With his humour and his inimitable manner on the court, the Iranian-born tennis player is one of the most popular tennis players. The fact that he was able to grab a bat and play on the tour was connected with enormous obstacles. Bahrami spoke to SPOX and Tennisnet about beating in Iran, illegal years in France and show fights with Franz Beckenbauer and Thomas Gottschalk.
SPOX/Tennisnet: Mr Bahrami, you’ve told the story many times, but we need to start with how you got your very first tennis racket. In Iran, a career as a tennis professional was virtually impossible for you.
Mansour Bahrami: My father was a gardener and worked in a stadium, so I could try almost any sport. Football, volleyball, boxing, swimming – no problem. But tennis was reserved for the rich, I wasn’t allowed to play.
SPOX/Tennisnet: That’s why you were just a ball boy. But you played anyway.
Bahrami: Yes, I hit the ball with everything I got my hands on: a broom, a dustpan or my flat hand against a wall.
SPOX/Tennisnet: And then you got your first racket from a player in the Tehran Racket Club.
Bahrami: I was twelve years old when he gave it to me. I was so happy that the next day I went straight to the square. It was a hot summer day, maybe 45 degrees, not one of the 13 seats was occupied. So I went with another boy, but he was allowed to play and I wasn’t. That’s why I came back in the afternoon. We hadn’t played for a minute before we were surrounded by the guards. One of the guards beat me up and threw me to the ground one by one. When I was lying there bleeding, he took my bat, stepped on it and broke it into two pieces.
SPOX/Tennisnet: How did it come about that you played tennis later on? Even for the Iranian Davis Cup team?
Bahrami: It was because the Davis Cup players, including the one who gave me the bat, got older. So the bandage needed new blood. And I was seen playing on the street. So a year later they came to me and two or three others who were in the same situation and said:”Okay, now you can play and always use the courts. Here are two thugs,” That’s why I played – and was a member of the Davis Cup team with 15.
SPOX/Tennisnet: What happened next?
Bahrami: At 17, I played ATP qualifiers for ATP tournaments, competed at Challengern and so on. But just before I was 21. I had to quit on my birthday because of the Iranian Revolution. Suddenly I could not leave the country because the borders were closed. Tennis was banned, the new regime said:”This is a capitalist American sport we don’t want, I was stuck in the country for over three years and I was no longer allowed to play.
SPOX/Tennisnet: A fatal blow to your career.
Bahrami: It was only when I was 24 that I came to France somehow. I stayed there for six years – illegally. I didn’t have a visa and no papers, so I had to stay away from the police. I played six years in France, almost only small tournaments because I couldn’t travel – getting a visa for other countries was almost impossible for me. One can say that I did not play professional tennis from 20 to 30, that is to say in my best years.
SPOX/Tennisnet: These must have been extremely hard years. Why didn’t you just give up at some point?
Bahrami: Look, I had my hardest time as a tennis player at the age of seven to ten years: I was allowed to try everything, but I was not allowed to play tennis. Everybody tried to stop me. And that was the end of it. I said to myself:”You want to stop me, but tennis is my sport! If it had been easy for me from the beginning, I might have become a footballer, swimmer or anything else. I knew it was going to be hard when I left Iran, but I only left because I wanted to play tennis. If I hadn’t been a tennis player, I wouldn’t have left the country.
SPOX/Tennisnet: And how have you been doing in France during these six years?
Bahrami: Even though I only played the tournaments in France, the level was not to be despised. In order to win, you had to beat the fourth or fifth-best player in the country, all professionals. I’ve met ATP players three or four times a year, at the French Open, Monte Carlo, Nice or Bordeaux. But because I was only able to play so few ATP tournaments, that was not enough for a good ranking. It was not until 1986 that I received a ten-year residence permit. So it was easier for me to get visas for other countries, so I played more ATP tournaments. And three years later I got a French passport, after that everything was easier.
SPOX/Tennisnet: You have won two ATP tournaments in your career and were number 31 in the world in 1987. In doubles, you’ve even reached the final of the French Open.
Bahrami: And all this with 30 or older. Before that, I wasn’t really allowed to play on the tour.
SPOX/Tennisnet: Again, you’ve never thought about throwing it all in those ten years?
Bahrami: No, never. Even now it makes me sad when I think that I have to stop in a few years. To stop playing tennis was never an option for me. That’s why I still play today: I love sports and people want to see me play. I’m lucky to be in this position.
Page 1: Mansour Bahrami about his career: beating Iran, hiding in France
Page 2: Mansour Bahrami about his talent as a comedian and matches against soccer players