Cristiano Ronaldo might be worth over £400million, but that doesn’t hold a candle to the colossal wealth of the world’s richest ever tennis star.

Romanian Ion Tiriac, who hung up his racket in 1979, only made around £200,000 during his tennis career. Although he won a French doubles titles in 1970 and reached the semi-final of Wimbledon, he enjoyed nowhere near the same level of fame as the likes of Rafa Nadal, Roger Federer or Serena Williams.

Following his retirement from the sport, Tiriac took up coaching and worked with the likes of Ilie Nastase and a young Boris Becker. However, it was only after he turned his attention away from tennis that he found wealth, with a string of good investments seeing him earn a fortune now believed to be around £1.2 billion.

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That is according to Forbes, which claims the 83-year-old owns a car and motorcycle collection of more than 400 models, including cars previously owned by Al Capone, Sammy Davis Jr. and Elton John.

Tiriac heads the Tiriac Group, which has interests in a number of different areas, from real estate to auto, financial services and much more. Under Tiriac Holdings Ltd, he has invested in retail, insurance and airline businesses and in 2007 was named as Romania’s first billionaire.

The veteran star was quizzed on his real net worth during an appearance on Piers Morgan’s TV show in November last year. Asked whether he has more pounds in the bank or Instagram followers, Ronaldo chuckled and replied: “It’s a good question.

“Probably similar. I don’t know. It’s good, it’s good to be still number one. Something that makes me happy too, if you see the Forbes magazine every year I’m top of the list so it’s not by coincidence too.”

Source: newsnow