TENNIS commentator Andrew Castle has come under fire again after interrupting Wimbledon legend Andre Agassi to talk about the Royal Box.
The broadcaster, 61, was slammed by the 1992 Wimbledon winner after he cut him off to mention Nick Clegg in the VIP seats.
American tennis icon Agassi, 55, made his BBC commentary debut today and immediately made an impression with cutting remarks towards his Brit colleague.
He was forced to tell blundering Castle, who kept talking about the Royal Box: “People watching are watching for tennis, not for this.”
During Carlos Alcaraz’s crunch clash with Taylor Fritz, in which Agassi spent minutes analysing both players’ technique, Castle cut in to talk about the host of A-list stars in the Royal Box.
He said: “Benedict Cumberbatch and the bloke who knocked off James Bond, Rami Malek, that’s no good. I’d be nervous sitting next to him.”
A baffled Agassi replied: “Which Bond did he knock off?”
Former tennis star Castle then said: “Daniel Craig. That was it, over.”
The camera then showed more Hollywood stars, but Castle again brought up Rami Malek.
He said: “There’s Rami Malek there, do you remember that?”
Agassi, who won eight grand slams, replied: “Don’t ask me stuff like that, I don’t know” – prompting an awkward chuckle.
He later joked: “Is there a way to ask your viewers if I’m talking too much?”
Castle, who has already been forced to apologise for misnaming US women’s football star Trinity Rodman as “Tiffany”, then started asking Agassi about Indian cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar.
As the camera panned to the all-time top run scorer, Castle asked: “What do you know about cricket?
Agassi again reminded his colleague: “Do not ask me about people that you show on television because this is my weakness.”
But Castle ploughed on and said: “It’s a lovely Royal Box there today and this was obviously a great ticket for anybody.”
Desperate to focus on the semi-final clash, the American began trying to talk about world No5 Fritz’s serve.
He said: “I can just make one comment here that’s short of a prediction, we saw Taylor go to another level of risk with his serve, which dropped his percentage but then paid off for him.”
“We saw him go to another level of risk with the backhand… go ahead if you want to say something.”
Castle butted in: “That’s Elaine Paige, she’s a musical theatre star, but she’s also president of the Dan Maskell Tennis Trust, they support disabled tennis very much.”
When Agassi again said he did not know the stars, Castle joked: “Let’s test. This is Andre Agassi and this is guess the Royal Box member”.
It got another catty retort from Agassi who slapped down his co-commentator, adding: “Don’t torture me, let me finish my point.”
But Castle said: “That was Nick Clegg, our former deputy prime minister.”
An exhausted Agassi finally snapped and declared: “People watching are watching for tennis, not for this.”
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