My respect for Sergio García has gone up tenfold. I had him down as a self-obsessed, unduly narcissistic sportsman of the old school for whom love was a distraction from the important business of hitting irons, drivers and putts on courses around the world and for which he has been paid a small fortune, even if he has yet to achieve success in any major championships.

But now we find that he has a soft heart, a romantic edge and a breadth of character that extends beyond the confines of the fairway and into the territory of Jane Austen. The poor dear is hurt; he has been dumped by his sweetheart (who, incidentally, happens to be the daughter of a great Australian player called Greg Norman, nicknamed the Great White Shark); and his form on the golf course has nosedived.

I will be honest with you: I know how he feels. I used to be a top sportsman (yes, really) and I could hardly eat or sleep, let alone execute forehand topspins, when I was dumped in early 1999 (I remember the date because, being a charming, courteous, handsome fellow, it all came as a bit of a shock).

Table tennis seemed rather meaningless with my heart aching and ego bruised and I was too light-headed from my inability to hold food down to last long in the training hall. My team-mates found the whole thing hilarious, cruel chaps that they were, particularly when I bumped into my ex at the dinner queue at a competition in Germany (she was a player, too) and almost started blubbing, but my coach was deeply concerned and tried everything to get my mind back on the job.

Sport, after all, is a finely calibrated, highly attuned, endlessly competitive arena where success and failure are measured in the smallest of margins. But, then, so is love.