Tennis is the sport where love equates to nothing, it’s the trash-talking that scores big points. Drop shots come, backhand passes go but the ability to direct a venomous insult with the ferocity of the sharpest volley is a skill that makes the world take notice.

Bitchiness is big business in the racket world and Justin Gimelstob should know after his ungentlemanly outburst this week in the direction of the women’s tour and Anna Kournikova in particular. Outside the inner sanctum of the game, barely an eyebrow was raised when he was elected on to the ATP’s board of directors a week ago. Today he rivals chauvinistic tennis legends Bobby Riggs and Richard Krajicek for notoriety after his ill-chosen comments.

Riggs, of course, took Billie Jean King and feminism in general to task by declaring: “If I am to be a chauvinist pig, I want to be the No 1 pig.” And he most certainly was for a while until Krajicek declared that 80% of the top 100 women players were fat pigs who didn’t deserve equal pay. Pat Cash’s generalisation of a couple of decades ago that “women’s tennis is two sets of rubbish that lasts only half an hour” also served to ruffle a few feminist feathers but Gimelstob’s observations rendered such a statement pale by comparison. He branded Kournikova, whom he trained as a junior, a “bitch”.

“I have no attraction to her because she’s such a douche,” he said. “I really have no interest in her . . . I wouldn’t mind having my younger brother nail her and then reap the benefits of that. She has a great body but her face is a five.”

The Sony Ericsson WTA Tour predictably demanded an apology for Gimelstob’s remarks. A statement released yesterday said: “The Tour is very disappointed in Justin Gimelstob’s remarks, which were inappropriate and contrary to what our sport should stand for.

“Both Billie Jean King [WTA president] and the Tour have spoken to Justin and he has apologised for his comments. We believe that we will not see this type of behaviour again from him.”

Some would say, however, that Kournikova is only reaping what she once sowed. Towards the end of her career she found herself regularly outpowered by the Williams sisters and she declared: “I’m not Venus. I’m not Serena. I’m feminine. I don’t want to look the way they do.”

No mitigation was offered in Gimelstob’s defence to Etienne de Villiers, executive chairman of the ATP, who was rightly appalled at the crass foolhardiness demonstrated by his latest board recruit, so much so that he immediately carpeted Gimelstob (pictured right) and, while allowing him to keep a seat on the board, ordered him to make an immediate apology to Kournikova and others such as Nicole Vaidisova, who was described as having a “well-developed body”, and the French duo of Tatiana Golovin and Alize Cornet, bracketed as “sexpots”.

However, the tradition has long been for female retribution. King’s doubles partner Rosie Casals hit back at Riggs by saying he was an “old man who walked like a duck who can’t see and can’t hear”. Martina Navratilova was a little more judicious in her response to Cash, choosing to make him a gift of a tie - “knowing of course he rarely wore such a thing” - emblazoned with a pig’s head.

There have been some notably strong verbal attacks, some of which go back deep into the annals of amateurism and centre on some of the game’s great rivalries. Devon-born but naturalised American May Sutton Bundy became the first foreigner to win the Wimbledon women’s singles title in 1905 but earned the following rebuke from her rival Hazel Hotchkiss Wightman: “She was not ladylike, she was rude and unsportsmanlike.” Bill Tilden and Jean Borotra were two of the legendary names of the 1920s, but the American and Frenchman were far from friends. “Borotra was the artist and charlatan of the French; undoubtedly the greatest showman and faker in tennis history,” said Tilden.

C o m i n g nearer to the modern day there have been some regular figures who repeatedly rankle with those they meet across the net and it should not be surprising that much of the invective centres on John McEnroe. Goran Ivanisevic maintained the outspoken New Yorker was his boyhood hero but en route to his m e m o r a b l e Wimbledon victory in 2001 he countered some accusations about his playing limitations. “He [McEnroe] gives everybody s***,” said Ivanisevic. “Who cares about John McEnroe now? He’s an idiot.” But McEnroe, of course, gave more than he took and two men he abhorred more than any others were Ivan Lendl and Brad Gilbert. Of Lendl, whom he battled throughout the early 1980s, he once declared: “I’ve got more talent in my pinkie than Lendl has in the whole of his body.”

Gilbert angered McEnroe even more. On losing in his home town to his countryman in the 1986 Masters tournament in Madison Square Garden, McEnroe stormed: “Gilbert, you don’t deserve to be on the same court with me. You are the worst, the f***ing worst.”

Andre Agassi could also fire an insult with the best of them. Nowadays he maintains he views Pete Sampras with nothing short of reverence but in 1993 he declared of his hirsute contemporary: “Nobody should be ranked No 1 who looks like he just swung from a tree.”

There was no greater mutual respect in a rivalry than that between Chris Evert and Navratilova but occasionally ill-feeling seeped through and Evert once declared: “Her tennis isn’t going to straighten out until she straightens out her life.” And then of course there are the Williams sisters. Navratilova said: “They’re afraid to show humility. Humility doesn’t mean you are weak.” Venus had the perfect retort: “People criticise me for being arrogant but maybe I’m a little smarter than the others.”

Which brings us back to Kournikova. Nick Bollettieri, who nurtured her as a player, declared: “Anna doesn’t have any idols. She is her own idol.” Yet on hearing early in her career that she was being compared to her predecessor as the sport’s pin-up, Maria Sharapova said: “I’m not the next Kournikova. I want to win matches.” Last week the comment could easily have rebounded on Sharapova as she was beaten by another young Russian upstart, Alla Kudryavtseva, who chose to be critical of the Australian Open champion’s choice of on-court attire, saying: “I don’t like her outfit. It was one of the motiva-tions to beat her.”

Many were amazed by Kudryavtseva’s forthrightness but it was only following a tennis tradition. Lindsay Davenport has never been a player to court controversy but during her tenure as world No 1 she summed things up perfectly: “Most of the great players are assholes or bitches.”

Gimelstob on Kournikova...

"She is a bitch. Hate’s a very strong word. I despise her to the maximum level just below hate... I wouldn’t mind having my younger brother, who's a kind of a stud, nail her and then reap the benefits"

"She has a great body but her face is a five"

On women players...

"Female tennis players lack the social skills, they don’t go to high school, they don’t go to parties"

On Tatiana Golovin...

"She is a sexpot"

On Nicole Vaidisova...

"She's a well developed young lady"

On Alize Cornet...

"She's a little sexpot"

On the women’s tour...

"There are fewer lesbians now because they’re all Russian chicks. And there’s some other cute ones out there"