The tennis world's hall of shame for potty parents has another member ... if there's enough room Former players say Bernard Tomic may be better off without dad John as his coach. Date/Time: 2013:05:06 20:53:19 Source: The Courier-Mail THE tennis world's hall of shame for potty parents has another member . . . that's if they can find a chair for him. It's pretty crowded in there among self-confessed "crazy Iranian" Mike Agassi, "Papa Merciless" Peter Graf and our very own - actually, let's disown him - Damir Dokic. In some ways, news that John Tomic headbutted his son's practice partner was shocking. In other ways, it didn't even surprise, for tennis has a painful history of throwing up painful parents who cross the line between obsession and obscenity. Football players may feel the loving arms of clubs and team-mates around them, but in tennis a young player's journey is often comprised of you, Mum, Dad and the coach fighting against the brutal forces of a cold, competitive world. Jelena Dokic's dad Damir went within a whisker of achieving his own Grand Slam when he was kicked out of all majors, bar the French Open. Not so much a loose cannon as a maverick missile, he once claimed the Australian Open draw was fixed against his daughter, threw a tantrum over overpriced salmon and was sentenced to 15 months in prison for threatening the Australian ambassador to Serbia with a hand grenade. Tomic Snr appears very much a man of the same heart of the infamous Jim Pierce, father of French star Mary. Pierce left an indelible imprint on the tennis world after having a rule introduced in his (dis) honour which banned bad behaviour by coaches and family of WTA players. It was hastily introduced after he yelled "Mary, kill the bitch" during a game. Mary later revealed her father "would slap me after I lost a match or even if I had a bad practice." While many felt that German great Steffi Graf's greatest achievement was winning 22 singles Grand Slams, others thought it was staying a normal person despite having Peter Graf as her dad. He used to collect appearance fees in plastic bags but his recklessness got the better of him when he failed to do a tax return for his daughter for five years and went to jail for four years for tax evasion. Steffi was privately shattered by her father's decline but remained pragmatic, claiming "when you know what pills and alcohol can do to a person it's difficult to be angry." At least Steffi had someone who could relate to her problems when she married Andre Agassi, son of Mike, who introduced his son to tennis by hanging a tennis ball over his crib and taping a ping pong bat to his hand. Just when you thought no parent could start earlier than that, along came Richard Williams, father of Serena and Venus. He was obsessed about having tennis-playing daughters to the point where even though his wife Oracene did not want any more children he hid her birth control pills. His behaviour included meeting the girls' first tennis coach at a car wash because he felt the FBI were bugging his house, proving he may have named his daughter Venus after the planet he came from.