Translation
Ríos' career was marked by a number of controversies.
In 1998, he fired his coach Larry Stefanki shortly after he became world No. 1, claiming that he wanted to go in a different direction.
After achieving number one in singles, an Argentine reporter asked him what it felt like to be at the same status as Guillermo Vilas; he answered, "I've been compared to Vilas for a while now. I do not know him. All I know is that he was No. 2, and I'm No. 1."
He was fined US$10,000 for speeding during the 1998 Stuttgart Indoor tournament.
In a confusing incident, he ran over his physical trainer, Manuel Astorga, in his jeep, causing serious foot injuries. Astorga was later fired as trainer.
After a magazine published some photos of him dancing seductively with a woman at a Paris disco, his girlfriend (later to be his first wife), Giuliana Sotela, broke up with him. During a Davis Cup press conference, Ríos read a letter, asking Sotela for forgiveness. He ended the press conference in tears.
He was accused by his second wife, María Eugenia Larraín, of throwing her out of his car while driving to visit his daughter in Costa Rica. Larraín arrived at Santiago's airport in a dramatic fashion, in a wheelchair, and showing multiple bruises on her legs. He claimed that the bruises were not caused by him but were from a skiing accident.
He was disqualified from the 2000 Mercedes-Benz Cup tennis tournament in Los Angeles, California during a first-round match with Gouichi Motomura of Japan and fined US$5,000 for saying "(expletive) you" to the chair umpire.
He was arrested in Rome in 2001 after he punched a taxi driver on the nose and then had a fight with the policemen arresting him.
In 2003, while training for a Davis Cup tie with Ecuador, he allegedly urinated on some men in a La Serena bar's bathroom and was later expelled from his hotel after being accused of swimming nude. As a consequence, the Chilean team missed a flight to Ecuador the following day. He later apologized for the incidents.
In 2003, he and a friend were expelled from a Santiago bar after insulting other clients and being involved in a brawl with some waiters. Both were arrested and later released.
In 2018, Rios was fined $2,500 by the ITF after refusing to be interviewed in his then duty as an assistant to the Chilean Davis Cup team, and instead insulting journalists during a Davis Cup tie vs. Ecuador. He responded to the questions with: "As my personal friend Diego Maradona says, I never speak to reporters as you can all suck it."
In 2021, during an Instagram livestream, he accused Pamela Jiles, a Chilean deputy, of having tried to rape him as a 14-year-old, claiming that she had attempted to "take a shower" with him after an interview.
patiperro_v3
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1h ago
Chilean here, can confirm. Right-wing privileged twat to boot. But also he got me into tennis and would have never followed this sport without his success… so there you go. This post misses a lot of other stories as well.
It was later disclosed this guy was seriously neurologically divergent, autistic or something, can’t remember, not that it came as a shock or excused his behaviour. It was leaked as well, he had never told anyone until after he retired.
