Two Top Iranian Tennis Players Had Dreams Derailed

On an indoor court in Acton, Massachusetts, Ali Madani, Bahrami’s boyhood friend and former teammate on the Iranian Davis Cup squad, was teaching the game.

Three decades ago, their fates in sports and in life were determined by a tennis match. Bahrami and Madani, both 53, were swept up in the political turmoil of the Islamic Revolution. Almost overnight, tennis was forbidden, as Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini viewed the game as pro-American, capitalist and decadent. To Bahrami, Madani and the handful of other fledgling world-class players, the edict was a crushing blow.

With tournaments in Iran canceled and foreign travel out of the question, the players pleaded with the minister of sport for the opportunity to compete. The government finally relented, and a tournament was organized for the last week in July 1980. It was called the Revolutionary Cup, and the first prize was a round-trip ticket to Athens.

Bahrami did not trust the mullahs to allow the tournament to begin. Writing in his memoir, “The Court Jester,” published recently in the United States by AuthorSolutions, he described Tehran’s surreal atmosphere in 1980.

“We felt sure the revolutionary committee would change its mind and that, even before the end of the first match, the revolutionary guards would pile in, give everyone a drubbing, stop the tournament and clap the players in irons,” he wrote. “That’s how it was in those days.”

But Madani recalled his excitement at the prospect of leaving Iran to return to the professional tour. “It was a chance to get out and follow my tennis career,” he said in a telephone interview.

Bahrami and Madani faced each other in the Revolutionary Cup final.

It was a matchup of players with classic strokes, continental grips and all-court styles. But Madani played consistent, high-percentage tennis while Bahrami often favored the imaginative, inventive shot over the safer, more conventional choice.

In the middle of a point, Bahrami would try a drop shot with so much backspin that it would bounce back over the net. That frequently cost him a match, but it suited his gambler’s nature. Among his peers, his talent and shotmaking ability were legendary, but his ability to grind out a tough match was questioned.

Madani recalled feeling confident that he would win the trip.

“I had never lost to Bahrami before,” he said. “He was good, but too tricky on the big points to beat me. I would win by playing smart. I just knew I’d win.”

Madani still remembers the match with painful clarity.

“I was nervous and started slowly,” he said. “Mansour won the first set, 6-2. I started attacking more, really hitting out, and won the second set, 6-0. But Mansour adjusted his tactics and barely beat me, 7-5, in the third.

“It was my chance, my opportunity, and I lost it. It took me two long years to get a visa to leave Iran and play. I lost a lot of my game. It never really came back.”

Bahrami, who now plays tournaments and exhibitions 40 weeks a year, remembered their match but not the details. He recalled feeling dispirited even after the victory.

He initially planned to give the prize to his girlfriend at the time, but she persuaded him to try to exchange the ticket for a trip to France, where many wealthy Iranians lived in exile. “I never thought I would get the visas, so I didn’t get my hopes up,” Bahrami said in a phone interview from his home in Paris.

A friend offered to help secure the visas from the foreign minister, Sadegh Ghotbzadeh. He approved the request for visas, and Bahrami landed in France soon after.

Ghotbzadeh’s tenure in the government was short-lived, however; he was accused of treason for plotting to overthrow the regime 18 months after granting Bahrami’s visas. An intellectual whom Khomeini considered a second son, Ghotbzadeh was nonetheless executed.

Despite many obstacles, Bahrami continued his tennis career. Visa restrictions prohibited him from playing the ATP Tour full time, but he excelled in France, even reaching the French Open doubles final in 1989. Along the way, he developed his brand of tennis showmanship.

Bahrami’s penchant for trick shots, humor and dazzling racket work earned him a wide following, and he has made a handsome living.

Madani left Iran, played briefly on the tour, then settled in Massachusetts. He teaches tennis but no longer plays competitively.