It’s hard enough making a marriage work when one person is a professional athlete – all the travel, the time away, etc. But when both sides are pros, and at the top of their respective sports? That makes for impressive stuff. Take the World Cup-winning U.S. women’s national team, for example, where Julie Ertz helped lead the stars and stripes to victory. She’s married to Eagles’ tight end Zach Ertz. Of course, Golden Ball and Golden Boot winner Megan Rapinoe is dating basketball legend Sue Bird.
There have been plenty of high-profile sports rendezvous – and just as many breakups. Who right now, in 2019, is the best power couple in sports, combining on-field/court/etc. excellence between both parties? (Note: we’re only ranking currently married couples – Sue and Megan, if you tie the knot, you’ll vault up this list real quick!)
5) Mia Hamm & Nomar Garciaparra:
Hamm is arguably the greatest women’s soccer player of all-time, winning four NCAA titles at North Carolina, two World Cups and two Olympic gold medals. She was U.S. Soccer’s Female Athlete of the Year five years in a row and was the first woman inducted into the World Football Hall of Fame in 2013, among countless other honors.
Nomar, meanwhile, was in the conversation with Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez as the best shortstop in baseball in the late 1990s and early 2000s, before injuries derailed a magnificent career. The 1997 Rookie of the Year was a six-time All-Star, won two batting titles and had a .313 lifetime average, the bulk of that with the Red Sox.
4) Julie & Zach Ertz:
Julie, still only 27, just won her second World Cup with Team USA in as many tries and is one of the most important pieces of the central midfield for the USWNT. She was named U.S. Soccer Female Player of the Year in 2017 and has 19 goals in 88 appearances internationally. Zach, meanwhile, was a unanimous All-American at Stanford and has become one of the preeminent tight ends in the NFL. He’s been to two Pro Bowls and caught the go-ahead touchdown in Super Bowl LII to help the Eagles to their first Super Bowl.
3) Ana Ivanovic & Bastian Schweinsteiger:
Ivanovic is a retired tennis star, winning the French Open in 2008, helping her reach the status as the world’s top-ranked player that same year. After years of mixed success she retired from the sport in 2016. In July of that year she married Schweinsteiger, the German soccer legend. He helped lead Germany to the 2014 World Cup, finishing his international career with 121 caps, fourth-most in German history. Domestically he spent most of his career with Bayern Munich, winning eight Bundesliga titles and the 2012 Champions League.
2) Bart Conner & Nadia Comaneci:
A pair of Olympic gold medal-winning gymnasts tied the knot in 1996 after both retired from the sport. Conner was part of the 1984 Olympic team that won gold in the team all-around – it’s first in men’s gymnastics in 80 years – while also taking home gold in the parallel bars. He had previously won gold at the ’75 Pan-Am Games and the ’79 World Championships. He was inducted into the USOC Olympic Hall of Fame in 1991 and the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame in 1997, among other honors.
His wife, Comaneci, won five gold medals in assorted individual events between 1976 and 1980, including the first-ever perfect 10.0 in the ‘76 Games – overall she’d finish with nine perfect scores in her Olympic career. A nine-time medalist overall in the Olympics, the Romanian also won a pair of golds in the World Championships along with a massive haul of European medals.
1) Andre Agassi & Steffi Graf:
It’s going to be awfully hard to knock these two from the top spot. Married in 2001, when both were starting to see their careers slow down, combined Graf and Agassi have 30 grand slam victories (22 for Graf, eight for Agassi). Steffi – a 2004 honoree into the International Tennis Hall of Fame – also won singles gold in the 1988 Olympics, silver in ’92 and has a Wimbledon doubles title to her name. Andre – a 2011 Hall of Famer – won singles gold in the 1996 Olympics and also has three Davis Cup titles to his name.