It's Valentine's Day on Friday, so we thought we'd take you through a list of America's Top 10 sporting relationships (and some of them are a little spurious, as you'll see!) Cupid (OK, our blogger Alexander Ferguson) has your list. He's brought his arrow, golf club, tennis balls, and microphone...
Laird Hamilton and Gabrielle Reese (Married since 1997)
One of the modern legends of surfing marries smoking hot volleyball player-come-athlete? We'll take it. Can you imagine the athletic tips both sides would give each other? You know, in between dealing with social activities and two young boys.
Nomar Garciaparra and Mia Hamm (Married since 2003)
'Nomahhhh' - as he's well-known to the Boston Red Sox fans who loved him - had a great 13-year career, especially during the great times of the late 1990s, when he, Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez and Omar Vizquel battled it out to be the best shortstop in the game. His greatest move may have been off the pitch when he married one of America's greatest-ever athletes, women's footballer Mia Hamm, who scored 158 goals in 275 appearances for the US national team. Which is pretty good.
Andy Roddick and Brooklyn Decker (Married since 2009)
Andy Roddick first noticed Brooklyn Decker on a Sports Illustrated TV show about SI Swimsuit Models in 2007 (not a bad place to look, as it goes). An agent put together the meeting. They fell in love. They were married in 2009. Fun fact: I've actually met both parts of this relationship (Roddick in a bar in Miami a couple of days before the Super Bowl in 2007; Brooklyn in the Super Bowl Media Centre prior to the Dallas Super Bowl in 2011), and they really are lovely people as well as being pretty good to look at, too.
Matt Treanor and Misty May-Treanor (Married since 2004)
Matt Treanor's a baseball player whose career has been decidedly average (.222 battling average/18 HRs/129 RBIs/ 6 teams), but he definitely stepped up when he fell in love with and subsequently married one half of America's greatest-ever beach volleyball couples, Misty May. May's now producing babies (they are expecting their first), and studying to be a coach. Let's hope the baby will have the success of Misty... not Matt.
Chris Evert and Greg Norman (Married 2008-09)
Greg Norman wasn't Chris Evert's first marriage. She'd already failed in staying the course with British tennis player John Lloyd (1979-87) skier Andy Mill (1988-2006), and had had an engagement with fiery US tennis star Jimmy Connors. During her relationship with Mill, she fell in love with Greg Norman. But after they were married, she realised she'd made a massive mistake and the relationship collapsed soon afterwards. Which is disappointing, because I would have loved to see how an Evert-Norman kid would have turned out.
