Reminds me of the time when William's sisters confidently offered to whop any male tennis player ranked around 200th, and a dude ranked 203 whooped their asses with ease while drinking beer and smoking in between the bouts.
It just so happened that Karsten Braasch of Germany, once a top-40 player, but at the time ranked 203rd, was in earshot. He thought it would be fun so stepped up to say he’d be happy to take them on.
The date was set and the day arrived. Braasch played a warmup round of golf in the morning, then came to Melbourne Park. The threesome went out to a back court where each sister would have a one-set shot at Braasch. Word had spread around the grounds that the event was taking place, which caused tournament officials to restrict admittance to the area to only those with badges.
Braasch would smoke cigarettes and sip beer during the changeovers, and to be honest no longer looked the part of a fit professional athlete. It made no matter. Braasch led 5-0 over Serena before winning the set 6-1, and then posted a 6-2 set victory over Venus.
There was no umpire - Braasch kept score, and unfailingly gave the women the benefit of the doubt.
Both sets ran similar courses. The stylish Braasch dominated the rallies, pushed the girls around the court and only occasionally stepped up the tempo if the going got tough.
"Apparently, after the game, Serena and Venus immediately told the press they wanted to challenge a male player again," Braasch said. "This time they revised the ranking of the man they wanted to face, to 350 in the world. I informed the journalist who told me this that in the next week I was set to lose a lot of ATP points and drop down to 350 in the rankings. I told him that if Venus and Serena waited just one week they could challenge me all over again!"
"They wouldn't have had a chance against anyone inside the top 500 because today I played like someone ranked 600th to keep it fun," was Braasch's assessment.
Braasch learned what happens in Melbourne, stays in Melbourne.
"That (rematch) never came about, but when I saw Venus a few months later at the French Open she came up to me with a big smile on her face and said, 'You know that thing in Australia—it never happened!' " Braasch recalled.
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