There’s a scene early in director Tudor Giurgiu ’s documentary “Nasty,” a rollicking portrait of the ’70s Romanian tennis bad boy Ilie Năstase, where the Grand Slam champion’s mentor and longtime doubles partner Ion Țiriac recalls teaching Năstase how to ski. The young prodigy was a fast study — perhaps too fast. “He skied down perfectly,” says Țiriac, “except he ran into the fence because I hadn’t taught him to stop.
” You’d be hard-pressed to find a better metaphor for the free-wheeling, fast-living Năstase, a “wild child,” “rock star” and “insolent, elegant, angry, whimsical bon vivant” who makes a fitting subject for Giurgiu’s documentary, which has a special screening at the Cannes Film Festival on May 23. A co-production between HBO Documentaries Europe and Romania’s Libra Films, it will drop across Europe on Max the following day. Arriving on the scene at a time when tennis was shedding its buttoned-up image, the eccentric, petulant, foul-mouthed Năstase paved the way for mavericks of the game like John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors, leaving an indelible mark while helping transform tennis into a TV-ready sport.
He also knew how to handle himself on the court, racking up more than 100 titles on the ATP tour while also becoming the first world No. 1 player in the history of the ATP rankings. Speaking to Variety ahead of Cannes, Năstase confesses he was “lucky” to play in a different era, when his antics both on and .
