Olympic medallist swaps careers and starts to gamble
Wednesday 17th November 2004
Yevgeny Kafelnikov, the Russian tennis champion has retired and is now earning his cash as a professional poker player.
He is going about it in much the same way as he pursued his tennis career- with a certain amount of aggression. He has hired poker buff Kiril Gerasimov, Professional Poker’s Rookie of the Year 2002, to coach him in the ways of playing poker.
Five years ago he was the top male tennis player on the planet, with an Olympic gold medal from Sydney under his belt as well as two grand slam titles, but now he is competing in 888.com’s pacific poker open.
He has already won a big championship, after he knocked out Dave Colclough, the European poker champion at a tournament in Moscow.
The 888.com pacific poker open 2004 runs on challenge TV nightly from 20th November to 12th December this year.
Yevgeny Kafelnikov, the Russian tennis champion has retired and is now earning his cash as a professional poker player.