At 66, the Franco-Iranian tennis player, Mansour Bahrami continues to perform in exhibitions everywhere. Between two matches of the Roland-Garros legends tournament, of which he is the great craftsman, Mansour Bahrami was the guest of the show Europe 1 Sports. By his side, his son, Sam, who had the idea of creating a line of clothing bearing the image of his dad’s famous mustache, an extraordinary champion, known for his strokes of genius, his racket magic tricks in hand and his big heart. Mansour by Sam is the name of this brand, which owes its origin to another great champion, Bjorn Borg.
T-shirts retracing moments of his life
“I had noticed that he had created a brand in his name which was very successful and I proposed to my father to do the same”, says Sam Bahrami. “He said to me: ‘but everyone doesn’t care about me, he’s a legend. I haven’t won anything'”. It was finally during the Covid-19 pandemic that Sam decided to start, pushed by a friend who had himself launched his clothing brand.
“I wanted quality clothes that were accessible to everyone. I wanted it to stick with my father’s generosity,” he says.
These t-shirts retrace the different moments in the life of Mansour Bahrami. “These are key moments or places,” Sam explains. “Amjedieh, the sports complex in Tehran, where he grew up, housed in an apartment, on clay, under the bleachers of the football stadium.” A country which for a time banned tennis “because it was Western”.
“Dad then began to earn his living by playing backgammon”. Then Mansour Bahrami arrived in France, in Nice, in 1980, a place also immortalized in this range of clothing. “He arrives with a three-piece suit and 6,000 francs in his pocket, a sum he hastened to lose at the casino,” he says. Roland-Garros is also in the spotlight, the Porte d’Auteuil “where he slept on the benches when he no longer had a penny in his pocket”, relates the son of Mansour Bahrami.
Mansour Bahrami continues to train
Nicknamed “Trickshot Master” in the United States, Mansour Bahrami, 66, “has always had a lucky star above his head”, judges his son Sam. And he continues to amaze the public with his talent, at the border between sport and entertainment. “He trains for half an hour every day from January 1 to December 31,” says Sam.
“He hits the ball then he does stretching, weight training and then he goes for his cryotherapy. He has his regular physio, Cyril Donnet, and he will systematically do all the exercises he gives him, even on Sundays. He has the keys to his cabinet. He’s very careful. He likes it.”