Hall of Famer Pam Shriver is sharing her story of "an inappropriate and damaging relationship with my much older coach” Don Candy.

In a column, she wrote for The Telegraph, Shriver recounts her relationship with the married Candy as "a painful and emotional journey" that began when she was 17 and he was 50. Don Candy died in 2020.

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“I still have conflicted feelings about Don," Shriver wrote in The Telegraph. "Yes, he and I became involved in a long and inappropriate affair. Yes, he was cheating on his wife. But there was a lot about him that was honest and authentic. And I loved him.

"Even so, he was the grown-up here. He should have been the trustworthy adult.”

The owner of 22 Grand Slam doubles titles—21 in doubles and one mixed doubles major—Shriver and Martina Navratilova formed one of the sport's most dynamic doubles teams.

An ESPN analyst since 1990, Shriver was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 2002.



Shriver says her primary purpose for sharing her story is to alert people this still occurs on Tour today and "abuse coaching relationships are alarmingly common in sport as a whole."

“My main motivation is to let people know this still goes on — a lot," Shriver wrote. "I believe abusive coaching relationships are alarmingly common in sport as a whole. My particular expertise, though, is in tennis, where I have witnessed dozens of instances in my four-and-a-bit decades as a player and commentator.

“Every time I hear about a player who is dating their coach, or I see a male physio working on a female body in the gym, it sets my alarm bells ringing.”

In 2014, the Hall of Fame honored her decades of broadcasting work presenting Shriver the Eugene L. Scott Award, given annually to honor an individual who embodies Scott’s commitment to communicating honestly and critically about the game, and who has had a significant impact on the tennis world.

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