Poker Star Gus Hansen Plays Celebrity Tennis on Tennis Channel
February 16th, 2010
Danish tennis pro Caroline Wozniacki is, um, friendly with Gus Hansen.
Like David Benyamine, Patrik Antonius, and a number of other top poker players, three-time World Poker Tour winner Gus Hansen has a history with the game of tennis – and I don’t just mean being seen with fellow Dane and tennis pro Caroline Wozniacki at the Australian Open. He was a youth tennis champ back in his home country of Denmark and he still plays the game today. That background, along with a close connection, was enough to get the Great Dane an invite to appear on the new Tennis Channel series Celebrity Tennis.
Hansen took to the courts at the Stirling Club in Las Vegas with WPT commentator Vince Van Patten, who in addition to his poker duties plays the role of host on Celebrity Tennis. During the episode Hansen says that despite his success in junior tournaments, he chose not to pursue tennis professionally because he knew he didn’t have what it would take to succeed. And while Gus is known to gamble on all sorts of things away from the poker table, he swore off betting on tennis after losing a million euros when Spanish clay court specialist Rafael Nadal lost to Robin Soderling in a monstrous upset at the 2009 French Open final.
Besides Hansen and his fellow pro poker players’ connection to tennis, there are number of links between the pro tennis world and poker as well. Former world #1 players Boris Becker and Yevgeniy Kafelnikov regularly play high-stakes poker tournaments these days, while American tennis star Andy Roddick hosts an annual charity poker tournament and his countryman James Blake has been known to fleece Phil Hellmuth at the tables. More recently, Hall of Famer Pete Sampras has begun to play poker.
The episode of Celebrity Tennis featuring Gus Hansen is set to air on the Tennis Channel at 10:00 a.m. ET this Wednesday. Until then, watch Gus Hansen and Mike Matusow make a $10,000 bet on how many of two-time Grand Slam champion Justin Gimelstob‘s serves they can return:
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