Jeffrey Gail Tarango (born November 20, 1968) is a retired American tennis player. He was a top-ten doubles player and a runner-up at the 1999 French Open men's doubles tournament. He is now the Director of Tennis at the Jack Kramer Club, which is just south of Los Angeles. In 2018, he was the tournament director of a $30,000 men's California championships. At that championships, ATP world-ranked No. 11, Sam Querrey, beat Davis Cup captain Mardy Fish to win this event.
Tarango now resides in Manhattan Beach, California with his wife and children. He is married to Jessica Balgrosky, and they have five children (Nina Rose, Katherine, Jackson, Ace, and Jesse).
Career
Pro tour
Tarango turned professional in 1989 after completing his junior year at Stanford University, where he won two NCAA team titles. During his career, he won two top-level singles titles and 14 doubles titles. Tarango reached two Super 9 quarterfinals, Rome in 1995 and Miami in 1998. His career-high world rankings were No. 42 in singles and No. 10 in doubles.[1] He was runner-up in the men's doubles at the 1999 French Open, partnering with Goran Ivanišević.
Wimbledon 1995 default
In the third round of the 1995 Wimbledon Championships, trailing 6–7, 1–3 to Alexander Mronz, Tarango became infuriated with French umpire Bruno Rebeuh, who had ruled against Tarango several times. During the match, when preparing to serve, the crowd heckled Tarango and he responded "Oh, shut up!" Rebeuh immediately issued a code violation to Tarango on the grounds of audible obscenity. Tarango protested this violation, called for the tournament referee, and asked for Rebeuh to be removed. Tarango was instructed to continue to play. He then accused Rebeuh of being "one of the most corrupt officials in the game" – to this Rebeuh gave Tarango another code violation, this time for verbal abuse. Tarango took umbrage, packed his rackets and stormed off the court.[2] To add to the controversy, Tarango's wife at the time then slapped Rebeuh in the face.[3]
Tarango was fined US$65,500, suspended for three weeks, and banned from two Grand Slam tournaments by the ATP and ITF, though the fine was later reduced to US$28,256 after he apologized to Rebeuh.[4][5]
Tarango was also the beneficiary of a default in the men's doubles tournament earlier at the same championship. He and partner Henrik Holm were at two sets to one down against the team of Jeremy Bates and Tim Henman when Henman angrily smashed a ball that inadvertently hit ball girl Caroline Hall, resulting in their disqualification.[2] Coincidentally, Hall was also a ball girl in Tarango's match against Mronz.[6]
After retirement
Tarango retired from the main tour in 2003 and now devotes his time to coaching as well as broadcasting for BBC, ESPN, Tennis Channel, Fox Sports and DirecTV. He has been a member of the Davis Cup Committee for six years within the USTA. He still makes occasional appearances at professional events, including the 2008 USA F21 Futures event in Milwaukee.[7]
In his 2009 autobiography Open, Andre Agassi claimed that Tarango cheated in a juniors tournament in 1977 to hand the ten-year-old Agassi his first competitive loss.[8] During the final set tiebreaker, Tarango purposely mis-called a ball that had landed several feet in: "Players act as their own linesman… Tarango has decided he'd rather do this than lose and he knows there's nothing anyone can do about it. He raises his hand in victory. Now I start to cry."[8] In an earlier interview, Tarango instead claimed that Agassi had been overruled by an umpire on match point.[9]
